Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

Time passed, and then Bisker was coming up from the wicket gate with three detectives. From where he sat Bony could see them just above the coping of the stone balustrade. The party turned to their right at the top of the path, and took the path leading to the end of the house where the main entrance and the reception hall were situated. The hall and office would certainly be in the temporary possession of the police. Most likely they would use the lounge in which to examine every guest.

Bonaparte experienced a feeling of mental exhilaration. He had reason to feel it. In the first place his case of two days had taken an unexpected and remarkable twist, and, in the second place, he would have to continue to work independently of the police, as he had begun.

This was by no means the first time he had worked for Colonel Blythe. The first occasion had been in April, 1942, when he had been instrumental in locating the leaders of a spy ring acting for Japan.

This Grumman business was a kind of aftermath of the German surrender, and had called him, Bonaparte, from Brisbane to Melbourne, and in Melbourne to a house in the best side of Toorak Road. There Colonel Blythe had offered him a drink and cigarettes and begun to talk.

Had not Colonel Blythe married Colonel Spendor’s daughter, it is doubtful whether Bony would have ever seen Mr. Grumman. Blythe was a little over forty, fair-haired and blue-eyed, cultured and charming. He had had something to do with the British War Office for years before being seconded to Australia for special intelligence work, and the only time he seemed put out was when mention was made of the war-time Australian Intelligence Officers at Army Headquarters.

It was but four days before this beautiful morning of September 1 that Colonel Spendor, Chief Commissioner of Police, Brisbane, had sent for Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte and gruffly informed him:

“My son-in-law’s got a job for you, damn and blast him! I wouldn’t let him have you if you were not free for the moment. I’ve obtained priority for you on a plane leaving at two-fifteen. Before going out to the airfield, call in for some letters I want you to hand over to my daughter, will you? I wouldn’t put it past those blasted censors to open anything I posted. And don’t forget to give her my love, and tell her husband that he can have you for only seven days.”

Then in that quietly furnished room in the house in South Yarra, Bony had presented the letters to Mrs. Blythe, and assured her that Colonel Spendor was very well, as was Mrs. Spendor when he had seen her the previous week. After she had withdrawn, Colonel Blythe got down to work.

“D’youthink the civil ’tecs noticed you as you left the plane?” he asked, and Bony had said he thought he had not been especially noted.

“Good! Well, old pal, there’s a bird staying at a guest house some thirty miles out in the country who goes by the name of Grumman. If I ask Military Intelligence here to run the rule over this Grumman, they will probably send a lance corporal out to see him and to ask him a set of questions written down on a sheet of paper. They’ve done it before, the brainless idiots. And they’d like to know what I know, and wouldn’t begin to function until I had set out on some silly form all that I did know, which would not be much.

“Listen, we’ll go into the details later, but now here is the outline. Mr. Grumman is General Wilhelm Lode, who, it was reported by the Germans three months before they crashed, was killed in action. He was, and still is, a member of the German OKW, an organisation of military experts which lives for ever, in peace and in war, and through defeat. The public name for the OKW is the German General Staff.

“When the German General Staff knew that the game was up, it was announced that General Lode had been killed. Other high officers also were alleged to have been killed. Lode’s job, and that of other officers, was to preserve the blue-prints and the formulas of the most advanced weapons and scientific results in war-making, including the release of atomic energy, until the time again arrives when the General Staff can begin the blue-printing of another German Army for the third World War.

“How Lode got to Australia, I don’t know. I met him in 1932, and I saw him five days ago in Collins Street. You are the only man I can trust, Bony. I want you to rub him over, find what is in his luggage, find his associates, find where he has planted the stuff he certainly brought out of Germany. Those plans and formulas are more precious to us than his carcase.”

Well, that had been the introduction of Bony to Mr. Grumman. He had come to Wideview Chalet to stay for a fortnight. He had met Mr. Grumman, who spoke perfect English and not before that morning, when Mr. Grumman was found dead in the ditch, had he been able to take a peep into his room, where he received a great surprise.

Now Grumman was dead, and a friend of his named Marcus had called to see him and had departed hurriedly after having killed the local policeman. On top of all that, there was the surprise given him, and awaiting the investigating detectives, in Mr. Grumman’s room. Bonaparte was lost in his thoughts when a pleasant voice close to him said:

“Not Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, surely?”

Bony opened his eyes, affected a yawn and looked upwards to see standing just beyond his feet a man dressed in an elegantly cut lounge suit.

“And you?” he asked.

The other smiled.

“I am Sub-Inspector Mason,” he replied. “We have never met, I think. But Superintendent Bolt says he knows you quite well, and he’s rather anxious to renew the acquaintance. He’s in the office here. Care to come along?”

Bony smiled, and rose not ungracefully to his feet.

“Lead me to the Grand Inquisitor,” he pleaded. “How’s the old temper?”

“Fairish,” replied Mason, as they walked along the veranda. “You ever suffered from it?”

“Oh, no. I have observed it only.”

On passing through the lounge, Bony observed one of the guests seated at a little table, with two obvious plain-clothes men seated on its opposite side. Several small groups of guests were talking in low tones, some obviously irritated, others merely excited. The body of Constable Rice had been removed from the reception hall. In the office, Superintendent Bolt and two junior officers were seated at Miss Jade’s desk.

Bolt was a ponderous man, seventeen stone in weight, with not a great deal of superfluous flesh on his enormous frame. The top of his head was distinctly dome-like, a yellowish rock rising above a fringe of grey hair resting on his ears. Small brown eyes lighted when Bony and Mason entered the office, and he rose from his chair with outstretched hand. He moved with the effortless grace of a cat despite his fifty years.

“So it is actually you!” he said, his voice a purr. “How are you, Bony?”

“Very well, Super,” Bony replied, taking the hand offered and careful to avoid having his own crushed in the greeting.“Beautiful place, good cooking, good attention.”

“And no work, eh?”

“Nothing to speak of. Glad to see you looking so fit.”

“Thanks. Come over and have a chat.”

“If-you can spare the time.”

“Oh, yes, I can always spare time with you,” agreed Bolt, and chuckled. “Meet Dr. Black, our own surgeon. And Inspector Snook. Gentlemen, meet Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte of Queensland.”

Bony shook hands, noting the long cadaverous face of the police surgeon and the square-cut countenance of the Inspector. He accepted a chair and sat with them, Mason making a fifth.

“Been staying here long?” Bolt enquired of him.

“No, only a couple of days,” replied Bony, now engaged in the manufacture of a cigarette. “I came up here for a week of quietness and the proper atmosphere for meditation.”