The Devil's Steps. Arthur W. Upfield
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whisky bottle not three inches from the point where he had first touched what appeared to be twin fountain pens.
He hugged the bottle to his chest with his left hand whilst the right smoothed down the earth. That occupied him five seconds, and then he moved silently away across the bitumened space, recovered his boots, and like a black wraith slipped along the narrow path to his hut. With a sigh of relief he closed the door, crossed to the table and there in the light of the lamp examined the bottle gleefully, like a miser counting his gold pieces.
Bisker sat on a case at the table and up-ended the bottle between his lips and drank. The liquid fire coursed down his gullet, ran into and through all his veins and vanquished the depression which had settled on him like an enormous weight. He drank again, a little more slowly and a little less. Then he set down the bottle, loaded his pipe and smoked.
Ha! Life was not so bad after all. That bottle was a win, all right and all. What a win over the old cat, and that blinking George who wouldn’t give a dying duck a bit of weed. Bisker’s hand brushed his left coat pocket, and touched the first object he had taken from the shrub tub.
He had guessed rightly. In a black leather holder, to which two strong safety pins were attached, there were two large-sized fountain pens. Bisker looked at them. Then he drew an old newspaper towards him, unscrewed the top of one pen and began to write in a terrible scrawl. He tried the other pen with equal success. Both were good pens, gold-mounted. Now how did they work?
Bisker examined them more closely. He raised the gold filler-bar, and then he depressed it. Nothing happened. Yet that was the way a similar pen in the possession of young Frank up at Marlee Cliffs had spurted ink. But what was the little screw at the end of each pen for? Bisker tried to loosen one with a thumbnail and failed. He inserted the point of his clasp-knife into the screw-head and after trouble at last moved it. When he took it out with forefinger and thumb he saw the screw was attached to a tiny cylinder less than one inch in length. The cylinder was covered with a glistening wax-like substance.
“Now wot in ’ell’s inside that?” he demanded softly. “Well, we’ll cut ’er open and just see.”
The end of the cutting edge of his clasp-knife was razor-sharp. With it, he began gently to cut longwise through the wax which was fairly hard. Quite suddenly the material inside the wax burst open, and Bisker sat looking down on a strip of white film less than half an inch in width and about twelve inches in length. On the film was a series of black dots smaller than pin heads.
Then Bisker’s blood froze. There was someone behind him. There had not been a sound, but he knew suddenly that someone stood behind him.
“Where did you find those pens, Bisker?”
The blood in Bisker’s veins began again to flow. The pens! Poof! He had feared that someone behind him was after the whisky in the bottle. The voice was that of Mr. Bonaparte.
Chapter Six
Bisker’s Visitors
“Don’t move your hand, Bisker. You might tear that most valuable film.”
Into the range of Bisker’s eyes Bony slid a long-fingered brown hand which closed firmly on his wrist. Against his shoulder pressed the slim body of the guest who had promised to consider how he could be released from servitude to Miss Jade. The strength in the hand about his wrist astonished Bisker.
Bony’s other hand then came into Bisker’s view, and the fingers began to disentangle the long strip of what appeared to be a species of celluloid on which the many dots showed clearly. It was not unlike a strip of cine-film.
“I am going to release your wrist. Don’t move it until I say so,” Bony ordered, and Bisker stared with fascination as the two brown hands slowly and carefully disengaged the strip. He saw that the inner end was attached to an aluminium spindle. “Take this end. Gently now. Take it by the edge and don’t let go.”
Bony now had the strip straightened between himself and Bisker, and with great care he began to rewind it on the spindle. Without speaking, Bisker watched the brown hands, and then glanced upwards at the brown face in which the blue eyes gleamed like gems, then down once more to the film being slowly re-wound. After what appeared to be a very long time for Bisker, who could observe the whisky bottle beyond Bony’s hands, the end he held was drawn against the roll, and now the roll was being pressed into the little waxlike case. Thereupon the cut selvedge’s were pressed together as the whole was inserted into the pen. Finally, the containing screw was replaced, and the pen slipped into the leather holder. Not until he saw the filled holder slipped into Bony’s inside coat pocket did Bisker speak.
“A bit calm-like, ain’t cher? I found them ruddy pens, not you. They might be worth a lot of money in reward.”
There was another box against a wall, and this Bony brought to the table and sat upon it to face Bisker.
“Well—wot about——” Bisker began and fell into a strained silence beneath the intense stare of those ice-cold blue eyes in the brown face. He experienced a distinct sense of relief when the blue eyes moved their gaze from him to the making of a cigarette, and the ensuing silence, in which the soft noises of the fire came as though from another world, seemed to Bisker to be interminable. Then, without looking up, Bony spoke:
“Go and draw down the blind. When you’ve done that, I am going outside to see if anyone is lurking about. You will then come here and sit down again, and you will not touch the whisky. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mr. Bonaparte, but—what’s it all mean?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute or two. Now—the blind.”
Bisker felt rebellious, but he obeyed, and when he had pulled down the blind on the only window, Bony laid the newly made cigarette across the top of the glass bottle-stopper in fine balance. Then he slipped to the door he had not closed when he entered, opened it wide enough to permit his body to pass outside, and closed it.
The night was dark in spite of the stars. He moved swiftly round the first corner of the hut, then reversed and passed the door to gain the opposite corner. In this way he passed round the entire structure till he came again to the door and was satisfied that no one was playing hide and seek with him. Normal eyes would have failed to see the trunks of the gum trees bordering the driveway, the faint greyish tint of the garages seen from the door of the hut, and the bank of shrubs beyond the window-wall, with tall trees beyond it. Normal ears would not have registered the faint whispering of leaves stirred by an air current, nor have distinguished the foot-falls of a cat crossing a swathe of dead leaves. There were a host of shadows impenetrable even to Bony’s half-aboriginal eyes, gulfs and tunnels of black void which might conceal a hundred enemies, but he decided he could be reasonably sure that no one up to that moment had drawn near enough to the window and door to see what Bisker had taken from the shrub tub.
On opening the door of the hut, he found the rotund little man still seated on his case. But he was facing the door, his eyes wide and round and his grey moustache standing straight out from his face. Closing the door, Bony crossed to the table, seated himself on the second case, took the cigarette from the bottle top and lit it.
“You may get a cup or a glass, Bisker, and take a drink. Drinking from the bottle disturbs my appreciation of the niceties.”
Bisker blinked, rose and brought to the table a cracked cup. Bony passed him the bottle and watched the cup being half filled. The cup was raised to Bisker’s mouth and over it he regarded his visitor. Then he drank moderately and wiped his moustache with his coat-sleeve. He was invited to light his pipe.
“Where did you find those fountain pens?” Bony asked, and warned Bisker to speak softly.
“In the shrub tub to the left of the porch,” Bisker replied. “I was getting me bottle of whisky when me ’and felt the tops of the pens, sorta. Of course, I didn’t know what they was. The bottle of whisky I——”
“Better not tell me when or how you got the bottle,” Bony cut in. “You say that you first felt the tops of the pens.