Arthur Upfield: The Devil_s Steps

“Ah!” breathed the Superintendent.“Meditation.”

“Not always is meditation a luxury; sometimes it is a necessity,” Bony stated, looking up from his task to survey the others swiftly in turn. “Dr. Black will surely agree with me that physical and mentalrelaxation are of enormous benefit to men who employ their brain.”

“Quite agree,” Bolt cut in ahead of the surgeon. “Good yarn for the marines.”

“The marines!”

“Yep! Now, my dear oldfriend, cut out the Justice Darling act of asking what a picture show is, and concentrate. You going to play ball?”

Bony sighed. He lit the cigarette he had made and which was an obvious offence to Dr. Black. The police officers regarded him steadily. Bony said:

“Tell me-whois Marcus?”

Bolt leaned forward and glared.

“Bony, tell us first-are you going to play ball?”

“Of course.”

“Good!”

“With a proviso,” murmured Bony. “I can play ball with you up to a point, and I will explain just how far I can go because you will not want to spend time unnecessarily. I have been, and still am, interested in the man named Grumman found dead in the water-gutter down beside the road. I came down to Melbourne for a special assignment, having been seconded by my Commissioner to the Army people. I am interested in Grumman’s past activities and in the person or persons who killed him. You will be interested in the persons who killed him, too, but not for quite the same reason that I am interested. I am interested in the man Marcus because he was connected with Grumman. You will be interested in him because he killed Constable Rice. Our interests, therefore, will not clash, or ought not to, and so I am quite willing to co-operate with you in return for your co-operation with me.”

“Good!” Bolt again exclaimed, this time rubbing the palms of his hands together. “Let’s begin. You were down by the body soon after it was discovered, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I found the man Bisker and a second man standing on the edge of the gutter just after Bisker had been down into it to see the body which the other man first found. I had a look around the place, examined the road-verge up and down, and then along the top of the bank, and finally the ground along both sides of the wire fence and upward from the little gate.”

“Did you find anything?” asked the Superintendent, and four pairs of eyes bored into Bony’s now-expressionless face.

“Very little,” he admitted. “Unfortunately, last night there was a very hard frost which, again unfortunately, was thawed very early this morning by a moist wind coming in from thesouthwest. I’d like to ask a question here.”

“Go ahead,” urged Bolt.

“Doctor-I know how difficult it will be to answer this question. How long do you think Grumman had been dead when you examined the body?”

The police surgeon frowned.

“Certainly less than twelve hours and certainly longer than five-going back from 9.54 a.m. when I examined the body.”

“Five!” repeated Bony. “That goes back to five o’clock this morning. According to Bisker, who got up this morning at twenty minutes to six, when he left his hut he noticed that the west wind, or rather what was a westerly drift of warmair, had set in. Had set in, remember. Not had just set in when he left his hut.

“We can accept it as a fact that Grumman left his room, or was carried from his room, before five o’clock and before that westerly warm air reached here so rapidly as to bring about a thaw. He was wearing slippers size eight. He weighed, I should think, about eleven stone. I have found no track made by either one of those slippers, either on the ramp leading from the gate down to the road, or along the edge of the road.

“From the face of the bank, I am convinced that he did not fall from its top down into the gutter, and I am certain that his body was not dropped into the gutter from the top of the bank. I am also sure that the body was not dropped into the gutter from the edge of the road. It was taken down into the gutter, and there carefully laid in it and the grass and brambles drawn over it to hide it from any chance passer-by.”

“But the man, Fred, was a chance passer-by,” interjected Inspector Snook.

“Quite so,” Bony agreed. “He saw parts, or a part, of the body, but we should remember that the body was placed there in the dark, by a person or persons not able to be positively sure they had concealed the body, which, from the position of grass stems and brambles, they had endeavoured to do.

“These points may appear to you to be unimportant. My task of tracking was made exceedingly difficult by the frost which made the ground iron-hard at the time Grumman’s body was placed in the gutter, and which thawed completely before the body was discovered. However, on the ramp I saw the imprints of a man’s boots, size twelve. This man came up the ramp after I did last evening shortly after eight o’clock, for an imprint of his right boot is partly overlaid on one made by mine, and he went down the ramp when the ground was much more frozen than it was when he walked up. The peculiar thing about this is that during the time I have been here, two days and a night, I have not seen any man wearing a boot size twelve, nor have I seen the track of such a boot. No man among the guests has such a foot, and neither Bisker nor the man who found the body has that size. He is, at the moment, a misplaced object and, in consequence, of interest. A man wearing such a boot would be big enough to carry a man of Grumman’s weight down to the gutter. How did Grumman die?”

“Poison,” answered the surgeon.

“Cyanide?”

“Almost sure. A guess?”

Bony hesitated.

“Yes,” he replied. To those assembled, he said: “Find the man who wears a size twelve in boots. He is not a workman. The heels and soles are of rubber, the diamond-shaped trademark is stamped on the soles, and the soles are partly worn, very much so along the inner edge toward the toe, indicating that the wearer is a horseman.”

“Thanks, Bony,” purred Superintendent Bolt. “Mason, examine Miss Jade and the staff and ascertain who called here last evening after eight o’clock-you know-the man with twelve in boots.”

When Mason had left the office, Bolt said to Bony:

“Any other point of interest?”

“Yes. A maid was sent to enquire after Grumman when he did not appear punctually at breakfast as was his custom. She first knocked on his door, and receiving no answer, she tried the door and found it unlocked. She opened the door a little way and called Grumman’s name. Again receiving no answer, she opened the door wide and looked in. The curtains were drawn before thefrench windows, but there was sufficient light to enable her to see that he was not in bed and was not in the room. Subsequently, when I went in, I found thatall of Mr. Grumman’s luggage had been taken away.”

“You can’t tell us how or by whom it was removed?” asked the Superintendent.

“No. I possess nothing on which to direct suspicion towards anyone. Personally, I find it most annoying,” Bony went on, blandly. “I want to go through the late Mr. Grumman’s effects.”

“You don’t want to more than we do,” snapped Snook, and Bolt began to chuckle.

A Pleasant Afternoon

DURING THE remainder of that morning, Bony occupied his cane chair at the distant end of the veranda. Plain-clothes policemen seemed to be everywhere; they walked about the lawn and up and down the paths; in and out of the room lately occupied by Grumman, thefrench windows of which were immediately behind the reclining Bonaparte; and about the veranda interviewing guests who already had been examined in the lounge as to their identity and occupation and holiday plans. Two of them photographed the house, the lawns, the windows of Grumman’s room, and the interior of that room and of the reception hall. The fingerprint-section did their work in Grumman’s room, while members of the traffic branch roared their cycle outfits up the drive to report to Superintendent Bolt, and roared down it to slip away again. An ambulance came to collect the bodies. Two men measured the lawns and the bottom road bank, and made a rough plan from which would be made a minutely accurate one.