Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

If the man observed by Bony to enter the house by the front door was a burglar, then he could be expected firstly to be operating in the office, secondly in the wine-store, and thirdly, well, anywhere. He must be first located before Bony could execute the work he had planned to do.

With his “cat’s whisker” feeling the way hidden even to his keen eyes, Bony moved soundlessly over the linoleum covering the passage floor. On reaching the cross-passage, he moved along that to the reception-hall door, now walking on carpet. The door was open, and this did not disturb him because he had not once seen that door closed save on that day the police held their enquiry in Miss Jade’s office.

The wall clock in the reception hall ticked loudly, but although Bony gave another minute to listening, he could hear no sound other than the ticking clock and the wind in the trees outside the house. Familiar with the furnishing of the hall, he crossed to the door of the office, finding that closed and knowing that it was fitted with a Yale lock. With his ear pressed against the wood, he listened intently, and eventually decided that the unknown man was not working within on Miss Jade’s safe.

Now for the second target. Using the swithy-stick like a rapier, he re-crossed the reception hall to find that he had missed the door by about two feet and was warned by the stick that he had come up against the corner of a straight-backed chair. Out through the door and along the passage, across the passage from lounge to kitchen, and without the slightest relaxation of caution, eventually he reached the door of the wine-store, a door also fitted with a Yale lock. Against this door he leaned with his ear pressing the cold woodwork.

No sound came from within. Other than the moan of the wind outside the house and the ticking of the wall clock in the reception hall, the interior of the house presented to him the silence of a bank’s vault. He had his ear still pressed to the door of the wine-store when from farther along the passage a door was softly opened. Normal ears, perhaps, would not have registered the sound, and much later, when he recalled this moment, he was undecided if it were sound or change of air pressure which gave him the warning.

The door of the wine-store was, fortunately, only five feet from the cross-passage and with two swift strides he was round the angle and peering back, confident that he had made no sound betraying him. Listening, he heard no further sound from beyond the wine-store-until he detected a minute noise of periodic rasping slowly becoming more distinct.

His mother’s blood wastingling his neck and the roots of his hair; his father’s blood was flowing strongly through his heart. The aboriginal half of him was widening his nostrils and dilating his eyes and urging him to flee from the unseen terror; the white half of him was holding him to that corner, controlling his limbs and his mind.

Bony knew what it was-that faint rasping sound becoming slowly more distinct. It was being made by the hand of a man who was otherwise silently approaching, the hand sliding along the wall to guide him through the absolute darkness.

Himself making no sound, not even the slightest rasping noise, Bony, with the aid of his “cat’s whisker,” slipped along to the door of the reception hall, and there turned and again waited-listening. Now he could hear nothing. The moments passed. The ticking of the clock in the hall had become hammer blows in his ears and he wished that he had stopped it.

The light glow appeared at first as brilliant as a searchlight. He thought it could not fail to reveal him to the man at the point where the passages crossed, and then instantly realised that it was not sufficiently strong, that it was the light of an electric torch shining through two or more folds of a silk handkerchief. Thus dimmed, it would not reveal anything beyond two or three feet to the man holding it.

The light went out, but before it was switched off, Bony saw that the man was about to enter that passage leading to the lounge. He walked swiftly to the crossing of the passages-to peer round the corner, holding his breathing the better to hear.

The light was switched on again, and this time Bony made out the figure of the man as he was about to turn down the passage between the dining room and the lounge door, the passage leading to the guests’ bedrooms. Again the light was extinguished. Bony counted three and then, with less necessity for caution with his feet as the floor was carpeted he gained the turn-off passage to the bedrooms, where he stood hugging the wall angle as he peered with useless eyes into the blank space of total darkness.

The light did not come again, and Bony was reasonably sure that it had been switched on only to guide the man into passages leading him to his room. So, after all, it was a guest and not a burglar. But that argument was wrong, surely! If a guest, he could have left the house by his bedroom window and could have returned by that way. If a guest intent on nefarious business, then why had he left the house, and later entered it by the front door? If not a guest, why had he entered the passage to the bedrooms?

Only five of the twenty-six rooms were occupied, the occupants being Raymond Leslie, Downes, Lee, Sleeman and himself.

These questions hammered at his brain almost as loudly as the ticking clock had done. Had the man mistaken his way? Was he even then returning? Bony could hear nothing whatsoever. He waited with the “cat’s whisker” held before him, his legs tensed to spring backward at the instant the top of his stick contacted a body.

Then once more he felt the infinitesimal alteration of air pressure and knew that the man had opened one of the bedroom doors. The same alteration of pressure did not occur again, and Bony understood why when visualising that the man would close the door with greater precaution and with slower action than he had when he opened it.

He had certainly entered one of the twenty-six rooms, five of which were occupied. Which room? It seemed unreasonable to accept the premise that he had entered an unoccupied room for the purpose of leaving the house by its window. That would pre-suppose that he knew which of the rooms were unoccupied and which were occupied, and that would further pre-suppose that he must be a guest to know the answer. Bony felt safe in assuming that the man was one of the guests. Still, why break into the house by using the front door?

Now sure that the man had entered one of the rooms, Bony proceeded to move along the passage on the side where were the five occupied rooms, his own being the last. Then he remembered that outside the doors of the occupied rooms would be a guest’s shoes against which he might kick with a foot. Following that thought, another flashed into his mind. Assuming that the man he had followed was a guest, that man’s shoes might not yet be placed outside his door to await Bisker’s early-morning attention.

With the “cat’s whisker” trembling before him, Bony passed along the passage, his left hand barely touching the wall. He came to a closed door, then a second, a third, and the fourth, behind which slept, or should be sleeping, Raymond Leslie. Yes, there were Leslie’s large shoes close to the foot of the door. Bony stepped over them and went on. He passed the fifth door and the sixth, and came to the seventh, and at the foot of the door he felt with the stick the large shoes of Mr. Lee. He could hear Mr. Lee snoring beyond the door.

The next room was occupied by Downes, anda pair of shoes were outside that door. Bony passed three more empty rooms and then came to the door of Sleeman’s room. And outside this door there were no shoes.

The next door to be reached was his own, and at his feet were his day shoes as he had placed them before leaving his room by the window. Bony silently and slowly opened the door and passed inside, where he turned about and leant against the frame so that he could keep watch along the passage, and also keep one ear directed to the interior of the room, where the stealthy gentleman with the masked torch might be.