Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

Lunch was served to the guests at one o’clock. The efficient George waited with the assistance of two maids, his movements smooth and his demeanour courteous. The guests were informed by Inspector Snook that they were released from restriction, and when they drifted from the dining room they found the secretary at their service and the now-composed Miss Jade on duty as hostess.

By three o’clock all but six of the guests had departed, and all but two of the policemen had left. The room occupied by Grumman had been sealed. Three kookaburras in a driveway gum tree decided to chorus their pent-up feelings in sardonic mirth. At half-pastthree Bony was the only guest occupying the veranda, and to him George brought afternoon tea on a service trolley.

“It’s been quite an exciting day, George,” observed the little half-caste when helping himself to two of Mrs. Parkes’s cakes.

“Yes, sir, it has that,” George agreed. “The next stir-up will be from the press, I expect.”

“Ah, yes. Those boys will make an appearance at any moment. In fact, they are a little late, but then, I suppose the detectives wouldn’t release the news till after they returned to the city. It appears that you will be less busy from now on.”

George smiled.

“Oh, the place will soon fill up again. Lots of people will come out of curiosity. Another cup of tea, sir?”

“Thank you. How long have you been employed here?”

Again George smiled.

“Three months, one week and four days,” he replied. “I had to work it all out for thed. s. Well, I must get along. Thank you, sir.”

As he trundled his trolley away Bony glanced at his feet, noted that he was wearing tennis shoes size seven, that he was slightly knock-kneed and walked on his toes.

The sun was westering, and already the house shadow reached far down beyond the highway. The valley lay bathed in colour, and the far mountains had changed their colour from dove-grey to warm brown. Not a cloud broke the blue dome of the sky, not a leaf moved, so still was the air. It was almost as warm as a summer’s evening.

George came again to Napoleon Bonaparte.

“Inspector Snook sends his compliments, sir, and will you kindly see him in the office?”

Bony frowned.

“What, again!” he exclaimed. “Hang it, I suppose we’ll all be pestered by these detectives for some time.”

“They can be very irritating, sir,” George said, sympathetically.

“They can be!” echoed Bony. “They are.”

He found the office door closed, knocked on it and entered when a loud voice bade him. He re-closed the door and crossed to sit at the table at which Inspector Snook was seated.

“Thought you’d like to hear results to date before we leave,” Snook said. “And there are one or two points that want clearing up.”

“Go ahead,” Bony urged.

“To begin with, our fellows haven’t located Marcus,” Snook said, his voice containing a trace of anger. “Within ten minutes of Bisker’s call this morning all roads leading down from this mountain were blocked, and all cars travelling from here were stopped and examined.

“Careful questioning of Bisker has given us a reasonable estimate of the time which elapsed between the minute Marcus left the house and the minute that Bisker spoke to Headquarters on the telephone as five minutes, so that the roads were blocked fifteen minutes after Marcus left in that car. The nearest road-block was at Manton, nine miles down the highway, Manton being a small township with a railway station.

“It’s possible that Marcus got beyond Manton in those fifteen minutes. And it’spossible, too, that he took a side road off the highway and two places between here and Manton. Anyway, he hasn’t been trapped.”

“Tell me about him,” Bony requested. Snook leaned back in his chair, placed the tips of his fingers together and pursed his lips before replying. Then he said:

“Marcus is our Number One Gangster. Marcus is our own pet name for Alexander Croft, alias Mick Slater, alias Edward B. Martyn.”

“Oh!” breathed Bony. “Ho! Ho! Edward B. Martyn! No wonder the constable didn’t have a chance.”

“No, Rice had no chance. Rice was a plain-clothes man for six years, and a good man, too. He was shot up pretty badly last year, and when he was able to return to duty he was offered the station up here for a period for health reasons. He knew Marcus-unfortunately for him when he was unarmed.”

“I’ve heard of this Marcus under the name of Martyn,” Bony averred. “He never came into my class of investigations. Bad man, eh?”

“Thebaddest, Bony. He’s cold and efficient, and the list of his crimes is as long as your arm.”

“What does he specialise in?”

“Dope. He’s an international trader in dope. You interested in dope?”

“No.” Bony gazed up at the ceiling. “No. It wasn’t dope which brought me here. I’ll tell you in confidence. My present interest is in secret war weapons and explosives, and such like. Now how does dope fit in with that? In other words, what interest had your bird Marcus in my bird Grumman?”

“Search me,” exploded Snook. “I don’t get this affair at all-yet. By the way, when you went into Grumman’s room, was the door unlocked?”

“Yes-with the key on the outside,” answered Bony. “I had with me a key to fit the lock of that door, and I was astonished to find the door key in the lock. Then I learned that the maid had been sent to see what detained Grumman from breakfast, and she had found the key in the lock.”

“So that, actually, all Grumman’s luggage had been taken away when the maid looked in.”

“Oh, yes. I am sure that Grumman’s luggage was not taken out of the room after the maid reported to Miss Jade and before I went in.”

“Whatd’you make of it?”

“Nothing so far. I don’t understand it.”

“Nor me,” admitted Snook. “There is this Grumman who gets the drinks steward to bring him a drink at ten thirty-five last night, and then goes off to bed. He gave no intimation of leaving. You say that he didn’t fall into the ditch, and wasn’t dropped into it. You say that his body was laid in it. Now where was he poisoned? If in his room, then his body must have been carried down to that ditch. Why carry the body to conceal it in the ditch, and why then pinch all his belongings?”

“Perhaps to give his effects a thorough, even a minute, examination, an examination which would require more time than that between the killing of Grumman and daylight.”

“Yes, there’s that to it,” agreed Snook thoughtfully. “But why try to conceal the body, and if to conceal the body why leave it there in the ditch? Why not take the body with them to the place where they took the effects, or at least to a much better place than that ditch? Up here there are millions of places where a body could have been concealed.”

“I don’t know why. Something may have gone wrong in their planning. If the body had remained concealed, even for twenty-four hours, then during that period the people here would have thought that Grumman had done a moonlight flit to evade paying his account. That might have been the plan, but it just went wrong when the man Fred happened to catch sight of the body in the ditch.”

“Probably it was something like that,” agreed Snook.

“Did you people get onto the man wearing the number twelves?”

Snook shook his head. Then:

“I’ll post a couple of men up here to look around for that gentleman,” he said.

Bony lit a cigarette and blew smoke towards the suspended electric-light shade.

“Do me a favour, Snook. Leave the gent with the big feet to me. I shall be staying up here for some time to come.”

“You will! Why?”