Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

“Pretty cool customer,” interjected the Colonel.

“Oh, yes, he’s all that,” Bony agreed. “Get Bolt to let you read his record. Coming to believe that George Banks knew what had happened to Grumman’s luggage, and, therefore, to Grumman himself, Marcus determined to ascertain from the steward what he did know. He assigned that task to his friend, Jackson.

“Jackson and two accomplices picked up George shortly after he had parted from his brother, Mick the Tickler, and they took the steward to Jackson’s factory, where they proceeded to extract from their victim not only what had become of Grumman’s luggage but also why and how Grumman was killed. Having then shot him, they disposed of his body, as you know.

“A point of interest is that Banks said nothing to them about his hiding of the fountain pens in the shrub tub, and what they contained. The pens were found on Jackson when they arrested him, and are now in my possession. I think a lot of them.

“Bolt and his crowd worked fast and well, following their raid on Jackson’s house on Mount Chalmers. What I have related to you is what the Victorian Police have built up with evidence and statements obtained from Jackson and his accomplices. Those statements fill in the blanks in that made by Mick the Tickler and Bolt now has the story clear-cut.

“The brothers planned to put cyanide in the water carafe in Grumman’s room, and then to remove the body and the luggage to make it appear that Grumman had ‘flitted’ to avoid paying his bill. Mick was to steal a truck which habitually was left outside the gate of a house tenanted by a wood carter. This place was two miles up the highway, and the truck was so parked that all Mick had to do was to release the hand-brake and steer the vehicle down the road, without the engine running, all the way to the Chalet. Then, having placed on the truck the body and the luggage, the vehicle could be steered for three more miles down the mountain road without having to use the engine. Here they would arrive at a place where luggage and body could be safely hidden perhaps for months in a natural hole several hundred yards down the slope from the highway.

“Having entered Grumman’s room and having found the pens, Mick set off for the truck, and George, wearing a pair of Bagshott’s boots, carried the body down to the highway and waited for the truck to arrive. It did not arrive, for the simple reason that the wood carter had accidently damaged a wheel the day before. The truck had been towed to his house, and he had removed the wheel and sent it away for repairs.

“They then decided to hide Grumman’s body in the ditch, and take it away the following night, but they had to work in the dark and their efforts to conceal the body were not successful. The luggage they carried through the house and ‘buried it’ in the corner of a lumber room behind a stack of Miss Jade’s unwanted furniture.

“That, Colonel, was a very neat piece of work,” Bony said. “Just think. Amid a houseful of sleeping guests and others, they carried heavy steamer trunks along passages and shifted stacked furniture without awakening anyone. Their planning was good, we must admit. They went to the length of wearing a pair of Bagshott’s shoes because of their abnormal size, just in case the police should be interested in the departure of Grumman, but they had not taken into consideration the accident to the wheel of that truck.

“I think that covers everything, bar the bone I have to pick with you. I stipulated with Bolt that I was to be left free to investigate in and about Wideview Chalet, but Bolt went so far in breaking the agreement as to place a policeman named Tully inside the Chalet on the excuse that he was to protect me from the persons who had killed George Banks and who, it was thought, would find out that I had taken the films from the fountain pens. The result was that Tully had been severely wounded. And then you did not tell me that you had already sent a man to the Chalet before I came down from Brisbane, so that not only was he severely wounded by Marcus during the uproar on the front veranda, but I have been put to a lot of inconvenience and have had my time wasted unnecessarily.”

“My dear man, what the devil are you talking about?” Blythe asked.

“I am referring to Major Sleeman of Military Intelligence, assigned by Military Intelligence to investigate Grumman. Major Sleeman was a guest at Wideview Chalet when I arrived there.”

Colonel Blythe waved his hand in mock despair. Then he pressed a bell button, summoning Captain Kirby.

“Kirby, do you know anything of a Major Sleeman staying up at Wideview Chalet?” he asked the ex-Scotland Yard man who entered.

“No, sir.”

“I thought not.” Blytherose to his feet, a very angry man. To Bony, he said, witheringly: “If you were to gather into one place all the country’s village idiots, and then compare them with these alleged Intelligence Officers, you would find the village idiots a thousand per cent more intelligent.”

“I am so sorry that your stay here has been disturbed by the extraordinary things that have happened,” Miss Jade said earnestly to Bony. “I hope you will come again sometime.”

“Thank you, Miss Jade. I hope to come again, and to bring my wife with me. My stay here has been delightful and it is with genuine regret that I have to return to Brisbane. I am going to let you into a little secret. Actually, I am a Detective-Inspector on a busman’s holiday.”

Miss Jade’s brows rose high and she exclaimed:

“Mr. Bonaparte-areyou, indeed!”

“Yes, that is so, and unbeknown to you, I have used a little influence to keep your name out of what is bound to follow, what with inquests and trials. Mr. Sleeman is an officer of the Military Intelligence, whowere interested in Mr. Grumman, and he found out that very late at night you visit at a house up along the higher road. It has devolved upon me to ascertain from you just why you visit that house so late at night.”

“But-but that hasn’t anything to do with Mr. Grumman,” expostulated Miss Jade, a flash of fear entering and leaving her eyes.

“Possibly not. Personally, I don’t think your visits to that house do have anything to do with the Grumman case, but Mr. Sleeman does, and I have so engineered it that my word for it will be sufficient to stop any future enquiry. You see, the Grumman case goes very much deeper than his murder.”

Miss Jade sank back farther into her chair in the lounge of the Chalet and regarded the dark face and the dark sympathetic eyes. Like all women who came to know this gentle, almost wistful man, she discovered that she could trust him. She wanted, quite naturally, to put the events of the past few days far behind her, and to get along with her peaceful business of running a guest house high up on this peaceful mountain. She asked Bony a strange question:

“How old do you think I am?”

“Thirty-four, or perhaps -five,” he ventured.

“I am forty-one,” she said. “I have never been married, but when I was twenty-five, I had a baby girl.” Miss Jade spoke softly and no longer was looking at him. “Her father didn’t refuse to marry me, or desertme, or anything like that. Everything was arranged for the wedding. But, you see, the day before we were to be married, he was killed in a motor accident.

“When the child was five she had infantile paralysis and she has never recovered despite all that has been done for her. That was before I started a guest house in St. Kilda, and I rented a house and furnished it with the things my husband-to-be and I had saved for and bought. I got a woman to live there and look after the child, who is also not quite normal. When I came up here and built this place, and was warned even then about the scandal-mongers, I still wanted my daughter near, and so I obtained that house on the upper road, and brought up the furniture. Some of it I had to store here. I’ll always keep it just because it was bought by the man I loved and the father of my unfortunate daughter. That’s all, Mr. Bonaparte. There’s nothing else in it but that. I have had to be so careful about going there to prevent people finding out.”