Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

To her astonishment and chagrin, she found Bisker’s bed empty, and because Bisker made his bed once every month, she was unable to decide if he had or had not slept in it that night.

Back again in her kitchen, Mrs. Parkes noted that the kettle on the electric stove was “singing,” but that encouraging sound failed to have any impression on the weight of fury pressing on her mind. From the kitchen she thudded along the passages to the staff’s quarters and aroused the two maids, who were not due to rise until seven. When they entered the kitchen, Mrs. Parkes had lit the range fires and was drinking tea and smoking her first cigarette.

“One of yougo and tell Miss Jade that the guts ’as fallen out of the works,” she said with unnecessary vigour, to add: “George still away, and now Bisker’s goneorf, too. The guests will have to clean their own shoes for once.”

To make the beginning of this day still more tragic for Mrs. Parkes, one of the maids giggled and fled. The vast proportions of the cook, the state of her ensemble, the square white face with the tiddly-winks marker of a nose in the centre of it, and in addition, the cavernous, toothless mouth, and the cup of tea held high in one hand and a cigarette in the other, were far too much for Alice.

Five minutes later, Miss Jade entered the kitchen. She was wearing a scarlet silk dressing gown and wearing slippers of rabbit fur edged with white satin.

“What is the trouble, Mrs. Parkes?”

It took Mrs. Parkes a little more than two minutes to relate her woes. Miss Jade listened without attempting to interrupt the cook, and, when the mechanism ran down, all she did say was:

“When Bisker does appear, send him to me.”

From such small events do Empires totter and crash into ruins.

When the maid with the early-morning tea knocked on Bony’s room door, he slipped out of bed and removed the arrangement of empty tobacco tins forming a booby-trap to announce any unauthorized entry by the doorway during the night, and from her he learned that Bisker had failed to report for duty. Miss Jade sent her compliments, and regret, and would Mr. Bonaparte, under these unfortunate circumstances, clean his own shoes this morning?

Bony switched on the electric heater, and sat down before it to sip his tea and smoke a cigarette.

He had not seen Bisker since the previous afternoon.

In his dressing gown and with a bath towel over a shoulder, Bony left his bedroom before his cigarette was smoked. He strolled along the main passage towards the bathrooms, meeting none of the guests, and eventually passed through the reception hall and out through the main door which had only just then been opened for the day.

It was a beautiful morning. The risen sun was flooding the trees and the garden with colour. Over the floor of the valley sailed small patches of fog looking like wool scattered upon the floor of a shearing shed. No cloud sailed in the clear and vividly blue sky. No breeze disturbed a tree leaf.

On arriving at the cinder path leading to Bisker’s hut, Bony read the latest edition printed upon it. He saw the wide imprint of the cook’s slippers. He saw the tracks of Bisker’s boots, the most recent impressions indicating that the last time Bisker had passed that way he had been leaving his hut. There were no other tracks of recent date.

Bony entered the hut. The blind was not drawn, but there was little significance in that, as Bisker seldom drew down the blind. The bed was unmade, as has been stated, butBony felt with his hands among the blankets and decided that Bisker had not slept in his bed the previous night. Upon the case beside the bed was Bisker’s alarm clock, but nothing else excepting the pipe which was habitually loaded with “dottles” in preparation for the first smoke of the day.

The pipe told Bony a little story. The bowl was empty. It would have been filled by Bisker just before going to bed. It had not been filled, so Bisker had not returned to the hut the previous night to sleep.

Bony circled the hut before returning to the open space before the garages. He had seen no fresh tracks, and here on the path were those left only by Bisker and the cook. As he dressed his mind was not on clothes.

Had those people who had tortured and killed George now got hold of Bisker? If so, then the outlook for the yardman was, indeed, bleak. There was, of course, the possibility that Bisker had gone to the local hotel and there had stayed overnight. His pal, Fred, who mowed the lawn, might know something of him.

Bony was far from being easy in his mind concerning Bisker when he went to breakfast to join the artist, Downes, Lee and Sleeman, and another man who had arrived the night before. The newcomer to their table was big and solid and weather-beaten, and Bony wondered if he was one of Bolt’s men sent along in defiance of the arrangement between the Superintendent and himself.

“Didn’t inconvenience me,” the squatter was saying. “I’m used to cleaning my own shoes.”

“Must make life a little difficult for Miss Jade, what with George staying away too,” supplemented Sleeman. “Perhaps he went along to the pub for a bender, and found it too good to leave.”

Lee recounted stories ofbushmen he had employed who, if they merely smelled liquor, simply had to demand their money and rush away to the nearest hotel. Downes listened but said little, offering once the remark that there must be plenty more yardmen to engage.

After breakfast Bony sought Miss Jade in the office.

“What’s this about Bisker being absent?” he asked.

“He’s just cleared out, Mr. Bonaparte, and just when he knew we were short-handed with George being still away and the house full of guests.” Miss Jade was angry, really angry, and he thought she looked more beautiful this morning than he had ever seen her.

“Perhaps he’s up at the hotel,” he suggested.

“No. I’ve just been talking with the manager. They haven’t seen Bisker for two weeks.”

“Has he ever been away before without permission?” Bony pressed.

“Never. I’ll say this in his favour, that he has never been away in the morning, and he has never overslept.” Miss Jade smiled with her lips only. “The man has a good many virtues, I must say in justice, but all his virtues are now nullified when my house is full and the steward also is absent.”

“It’s very unfortunate,” Bony murmured.

“Mrs. Parkes, my cook, you know, is furious,” said Miss Jade. She was in perfect control of herself, but the anger was written plainly in her dark eyes. “Good cooks are hard to get and hard to keep,” she went on. “Men, too, are hard to get these days. I must ring up all over the Mount and try to get a man.”

“What about Fred?”

“He might come-if I could locate him. But he goes here and there on day-work.”

“If you could tell me where he lives, I would go there for him. He might be at his home. If not, then I’ll try and find him for you.”

“Oh, Mr. Bonaparte, would you?” Miss Jade was genuinely relieved. “You go up to the top gate and turn down the road to the highway. Then you go up the highway to the fruit stall and take the left road towards the gulley. Fred’s little house is on the right-hand side near the gulley.”

“Excellent. I’ll take a walk down to the place right away,” the now-smiling Bony assured her, and Miss Jade went so far as to press his forearm.

Bony bowed, saying:

“Might I use the telephone here before I hunt for Fred?”

“Of course. Use it as much as you wish. I’ll leave you alone, and go to breakfast.”

Miss Jade again smiled at him, and again he bowed to her. She closed the office door after her. He rang the exchange and asked for the Mount Chalmers Police Station. The Senior Constable spoke.