Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

The day had not been easy for the maids, both having to do work normally done by George, and so during lunch tempers rasped and struggled for outlet until, when the staff sat down to lunch, open warfare broke out.

Mrs. Parkes had all day felt the need for exercise-violent exercise, the exercise giving both mental and physical relief from a condition of pent-up imprisonment, and when the second maid told Mrs. Parkes that she was a “nasty old gummy,” the climax was reached.

Mrs. Parkes removed her apron whilst she struggled for articulation. She threw the garment on the floor and stood on it. Then, with the index finger of her right hand stabbing to death the two girls, she managed to say:

“I’m finished, d’youhear? I’m finished, I tell you. You can do the blastedcookin ’ between you. I wouldn’t stay in this lousy, rat-infested joint for all the tea in China. You can have it-all the-all the-the-ruddy lot of it. You can kiss my back-so there-you couple of-of-”

Turning her enormous bulk upon her comparatively small andslippered feet Mrs. Parkes stamped from the kitchen along the passage, turned left and arrived at the reception hall. Without knocking, she entered the office where Miss Jade sat at her desk writing a letter.

“Mrs. Parkes!” exclaimed Miss Jade, outraged by the cook’s appearance in her working clothes in that part of the house where guests frequently moved. “What do you want here?”

“I’m finished,” Mrs. Parkes dramatically announced. “I won’t be called a nasty old gummy by anyone. I’mleavin ’. I’m finished. You can make up my money to last night. I’m going by the half-past fourbus.”

Miss Jade was petrified. She sat and stared at the infuriated cook. She was obliged to fight the fright produced by the prospect of no cook, a calamity far greater than the loss of a steward and of Bisker. She rose to her feet and stood in all her regal slimness. Mrs. Parkes broke out again, and Miss Jade vainly tried to stop her, to obtain a real explanation. And then the door was opened and slammed, and both women turned to be confronted by an automatic pistol menacing them below a pair of dark eyes gleaming red fire.

“Back!”Downes snapped. “Into that corner or I’ll snuff you out like candles.”

The threat backed by a pistol was less frightening than the man’s eyes and affected the two women in different ways. Miss Jade’s growing feeling of despair was replaced by a feeling of mounting anger, a feeling even inexplicable toherself. In contrast, Mrs. Parkes’s anger swiftly subsided as the heat of her brain was replaced by a coldness she often had experienced when her husband required correction.

“Back into that corner,” shouted Downes. “I’m giving no chances.”

Someone was banging on the door. Beyond it they could hear the voices of many men. By some freak of acoustics, or by reason of their mental excitement, neither woman had heard the firing on the veranda, and this sudden dreadful threat of death came upon them with terrific force. Miss Jade foundherself wanting to scream, and yet realised she was incapable of screaming. She remembered seeing a pair of flame-lit eyes, and the crumpling body of Constable Rice. The hardness of the wall at her back was like a giant hand holding her steady whilst she was about to be killed. She did not see Mrs. Parkes, but she felt the woman at her side.

The door withstood a fearful shock. Againcame the shock against it. Downes fired through the door-once. Yet again the door was shaken by some object without. This time there was the sound of splintering wood. And now Downes waited, a pistol in both hands, and it was now that he made his fatal mistake.

No great man can avoid making a mistake now and then. The greater the man, the sillier the mistakes he makes. Marcus was a great man in his sphere of activity, and yet he made a mistake of such enormity that his career ended on a note of farce. The mistake he made would never have been committed even by Bisker, and for him there was no excuse, for he had seen with both eyes wide open Mrs. Parkes kill a running rat with a flat-iron.

He actually turned his back on Mrs. Parkes.

There was only one missile handy to that woman’s great hands, and that was the secretary’s portable typewriter. This machine was a little too large for the normal hand to grasp and the normal arm to throw, but the hand that did grasp it was not ordinary, and the arm attached to the hand was as large below the elbow as is the leg of the average man above the knee, and much harder with muscle.

The machine struck Marcus on the back of his head and he went to the carpet with the terrible abruptness with which Constable Rice had fallen. With astonishing agility, Mrs. Parkes picked up the typewriter, held it up at arm’s length as she stood over one of the world’s most dangerous men, and over her wide face there hovered a tiny smile as though she were willing poor Marcus to sit up and beg for another jolt.

Miss Jade began to laugh hysterically. The door was burst inward. Policemen appeared at the window. Bolt and Snook and Mason almost fell in through the splintered door. Bony came in after them. They saw Mrs. Parkes calmly and contemptuously drop the typewriter onto the small of Marcus’s back, and then turn and take the over-wrought Miss Jade into her arms and press the dark head against her enormous bosom. They heard her say:

“There, there, dearie! Now don’t you take on so. It’s all right! When Ithrows things I throws ’em.”

The Rebel Goes Fishing

“YOU WILL be interested to know, Colonel, that Superintendent Bolt’s friend, known locally by the name of Marcus, is now recovering nicely from the impact of a typewriter. It was not a large machine. You will remember the story of Mrs. Parkes.”

“Wonderful woman,” breathed Colonel Blythe. It was the fourth day after Mrs. Parkes had thrown the typewriter, and Bony was making a farewell visit. He went on:

“It appears that Marcus was very friendly with the American Grumman, and having read the first statement made by Mick the Tickler, you will recall that the American Grumman changed places with General Lode, and was taken back, it is assumed, to Germany.

“Marcus was unaware of all this, and when he heard that an American named Grumman was staying at Wideview Chalet, he naturally desired to call on him. Firstly, however, as he was staying with his friend Jackson on Mount Chalmers, he contacted ex-General Lode at the Chalet by telephone. And when Lode could not remember Grumman’s friend Marcus he endeavoured to put Marcus off but Marcus isn’t the kind of man to be put off.

“Ridge House, where he was staying with his friend, Jackson, is only two miles down the highway from the Chalet, and being reasonably able to assume that he wouldn’t meet a policeman, he didn’t trouble to disguise himself in addition to the removal of a genuine moustache-removed several weeks previously.

“Under the circumstances which, although rare, are not fantastic, no one noted the number of his friend’s car when Marcus was driven to the Chalet. That there was no one outside the house during Marcus’s visit is not extraordinary, considering the time of the visit and that Bisker the yardman was inside the office with Miss Jade waiting for the local policeman. After leaving the Chalet, Marcus crouched down on the floor of the car until Jackson stopped it outside his house. There Marcus left the car and Jackson drove on down to the city and his office. He must have just got through before the road-block was set up.

“Marcus then built himself into the personality of Downes. He went by bus to the city, where he telephoned to Miss Jade for accommodation, returning to the Chalet per bus. He believed that nowhere would he be safer, and also he would work to learn what had happened to his pal, Grumman, and why.”