Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

Early in 1945 I was in Germany on an especial assignment, being then in the employment of the British Government. I was thus employed because, having completed my education in Germany and subsequently got around a good deal in that and other European countries, I was able to speak the language without accent and was familiar with the German psychology. And also because I have always been able to manage women.

While on that particular assignment, I met the mistress of a high Army officer by the name of Lode and through the woman I learned that he was a member of the German General Staff. Lode was infatuated with the woman, and as the woman became infatuated with me, I found myself in a strong position.

In March of that year, the collapse of Germany was seen to be inevitable by the German General Staff and Major General Lode was commissioned to take out of the country certain highly secret formulas of both drugs and explosives, and much other information of great importance to the General Staff, the members of which knew that it would be forced to dissolve for several years after the defeat and occupation by the Allies. At some future date, it could be reorganised and set about the job of preparing for the next attempt to conquer the world.

The possibility of defeat, it seems, had been recognised before the war, when it was recognised also that Hitler would start a war before the country was ready for it.

In the United States there was a man named Grumman, a German who had been naturalised shortly after thefirst World War. He visited Germany in 1937 or 1938, when it was discovered that he was remarkably like Lode, and the following plan was then arranged.

It being decided by the General Staff that their secrets must be sent out of the country for safe-keeping until such time as it could be reorganised, photographs of the formulas and plans, etc., were made and reduced to the size of pin heads on micro-film. The film was to be wound on spools and inserted into two fountain pens. Two other similar copies were to be made, a set of each to be taken charge of by two other officers, who also were to get out of the country before the crash took place. I know nothing about them.

Lode left Germany by submarine and landed somewhere on the coast of Florida. He was met by Grumman, who handed over all his identification papers, his personal effects and details of his business. Grumman went aboard the submarine and returned to Germany. Lode became Grumman, an American citizen.

I left Germany early in April 1945, having accomplished the work for the British Government. Certain officials objected to my severance with their department, but I gave them no chance to kick.

Early this year I arrived in Australia on the same ship with Grumman. On the ship I chummed up with Grumman, who was Lode, and I recommended to him Wideview Chalet on Mount Chalmers as a good place to stay at nice and quiet and away from the city. I did that because I knew my young brother had a job there as drinks steward, and thought that he and I between us could rat Grumman of his secrets, which would sell for enough hard cash to put my brother and me on velvet for the rest of our lives.

Grumman landed in Sydney. So did I. Unknown to him, I kept him under observation during the whole week he was in Sydney. No German contacted him. He came to Melbourne by rail, and I came here on the same train. For a week he stayed at the Australia, so didI. Still no one contacted him. Then he took my advice and went to stay at Wideview Chalet and I went up there and stayed at another guest house.

My brother kept me informed of Grumman’s actions and habits. Grumman felt himself to be perfectly safe, for he adopted no extraordinary means against molestation and/or theft. During his absences at night, when he went out for a short walk before going to bed, my brother Daniel went through his gear, and Daniel was a master at that sort of thing. He didn’t find the pens, and I did not expect that he would, although there was the distinct possibility that they were buried in the leather of his steamer trunks or in the soles of a pair of used shoes he would not actually wear.

I was sure that he still had the pens, that he had not passed them to anyone else, and that he would never do that until he was instructed to do so by a member of the German “Order of the Swords,” a secret Prussian military organisation which is said to be higher still than the German General Staff.

Daniel told me that shortly after Grumman arrived at Wideview Chalet there arrived also a man named Sleeman. Daniel got wise to Sleeman when he saw him sneaking out of Grumman’s bedroom window when Grumman was out for his usual short walk. We could not make up our minds what Sleeman was-whether he was just an ordinary crook after what he could pick up or was a member of some organisation after Grumman’s secrets. Daniel said he drank pretty freely during the evenings, but Sleeman was the type of man who is on top when there’s whisky inside him, and he made the most of this by pretending he was semi-drunk when the reverse was the case.

I felt confident that Grumman still had the pens in his possession. His higher-ups chose pens in which to conceal the micro-film, because in addition to fountain pens being very ordinary objects they have to be kept in a top pocket of a civilian waist-coat and therefore draw attention to themselves every time their owner changes his clothes, like an ordinary watch and chain which crosses a man’s stomach and has to be handled every time he undresses. I was positive that when Grumman took off his day clothes he would pin the pens in their holder to the pocket of his pyjamas coat.

When Grumman was visited by two men and two women, I began to be anxious. It was the first time since he had arrived in Australia that any friends came out of the blue to contact him, and so I decided we could not delay any longer.

The night that Grumman was murdered, Daniel added a stiff bromide to his last drink before going to bed. He doped Sleeman’s drink, too. That was before eleven o’clock, when the veranda light was switched off.

When the veranda light was put out at eleven o’clock, I went up from the road to the veranda and waited outside Grumman’s windows. After about an hour the windows were opened from the inside by Daniel. I went in, drew the curtains and the blinds and switched on the light. Instead of Grumman being held by the bromide, we found that he was dead. He did not die from the bromide because Sleeman got the same measure.

We did not know what killed Grumman, but I got the idea then, and still have it, that Sleeman poisoned the water in the carafe, because Grumman had poured some into a glass and drunk it-Sleeman intending to overhaul Grumman as we had planned to do after giving him the bromide. Anyway, believing that Sleeman had poisoned Grumman, and knowing that Sleeman would be asleep for at least four hours, we went over the body and found the pens pinned into the pockets of the pyjamas coat. Daniel actually took the pens, and both of us being upset at finding Grumman dead, I did not think to take them with me when I left, walking down the main lawn to the main road.

The next morning, a man whom I don’t know called on Grumman and shot a policeman. Daniel got the wind up, and when he went to bolt the front door to keep out the guests until the police arrived, he pushed the pens in their holder into the earth of a tub where a shrub was growing, thinking that he might be searched by the police.

After the first fuss and examination was over, Daniel saw towards evening that the yardman was most interested in that shrub tub. And so, when after dark he went to the tub to get the pens and found that they had been taken, he naturally assumed that the yardman had seen him push them into the tub and had taken them.