“Yes, a new, I thought, and highly improved frame for photostating rare books. My cousin, however, pointed out that the same improvements had recently been made by an Austrian emigre manufacturer. I abandoned the idea and reluctantly took apart my model.”
“A shame. But that’s part of the inventor’s life, isn’t it?”
“All too true. Was there anything else you wished to ask me?”
“No. Nothing really.” There was an awkward pause. The smell of whisky was in the air, but Mr. Partridge proffered no hospitality. “Funny the results a murder will have, isn’t it? To think how this frightful fact will benefit cancer research.”
“Cancer research?” Mr. Partridge wrinkled his brows. “I did not know that that was among Stanley’s beneficiaries.”
“Not your cousin’s, no. But Miss Preston tells me that old Max Harrison has decided that since his only direct descendant is dead, his fortune might as well go to the world. He’s planning to set up a medical foundation to rival Rockefeller’s, and specializing in cancer. I know his lawyer slightly; he mentioned he’s going out there tomorrow.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Partridge evenly.
Fergus paced. “If you can think of anything, Mr. Partridge, let me know. This seems like the perfect crime at last. A magnificent piece of work, if you can look at it like that.” He looked around the room. “Excellent small workshop you’ve got here. You can imagine almost anything coming out of it.”
“Even,” Mr. Partridge ventured, “your spaceships and time machines?”
“Hardly a spaceship,” said Fergus.
Mr. Partridge smiled as the young detective departed. He had, he thought, carried off a difficult interview in a masterly fashion. How neatly he had slipped in that creative bit about Stanley’s dissatisfaction with Ash! How brilliantly he had improvised a plausible excuse for the machine he was carrying!
Not that the young man could have suspected anything. It was patently the most routine visit. It was almost a pity that this was the case. How pleasant it would be to fence with a detective—master against master. To have a Javert, a Porfir, a Maigret on his trail and to admire the brilliance with which the Great Harrison Partridge should baffle him.
Perhaps the perfect criminal should be suspected, even known, and yet unattainable—
The pleasure of this parrying encounter confirmed him in the belief that had grown in him overnight. It is true that it was a pity that Stanley Harrison had died needlessly. Mr. Partridge’s reasoning had slipped for once; murder for profit had not been an essential part of the plan.
And yet what great work had ever been accomplished without death? Does not the bell ring the truer for the blood of the hapless workmen? Did not the ancients wisely believe that greatness must be founded upon a sacrifice? Not self-sacrifice, in the stupid Christian perversion of that belief, but a true sacrifice of another’s flesh and blood.
So Stanley Harrison was the needful sacrifice from which should arise the Great Harrison Partridge. And were its effects not already visible? Would he be what he was today, would he so much as have emerged from the cocoon, purely by virtue of his discovery?
No, it was his great and irretrievable deed, the perfection of his crime, that had molded him. In blood is greatness.
That ridiculous young man, prating of the perfection of the crime and never dreaming that—
Mr. Partridge paused and reviewed the conversation. There had twice been that curious insistence upon time machines. Then he had said—what was it?— “The crime was a magnificent piece of work,” and then, “You can imagine almost anything coming out of this workshop.” And the surprising news of Great-uncle Max’s new will—
Mr. Partridge smiled happily. He had been unpardonably dense. Here was his Javert, his Porfir. The young detective did indeed suspect him. And the reference to Max had been a temptation, a trap. The detective could not know how unnecessary that fortune had now become. He had thought to lure him into giving away his hand by an attempt at another crime.
And yet, was any fortune ever unnecessary? And a challenge like that—so direct a challenge—could one resist it?
Mr. Partridge found himself considering all the difficulties. Great-uncle Max would have to be murdered today, if he planned on seeing his lawyer tomorrow. The sooner the better. Perhaps his habitual after-lunch siesta would be the best time. He was always alone then, dozing in his favorite corner of that large estate in the hills.
Bother! A snag. No electric plugs there. The portable model was out. And yet— Yes, of course. It could be done the other way. With Stanley, he had committed his crime, then gone back and prepared his alibi. But here he could just as well establish the alibi, then go back and commit the murder, sending himself back by the large machine here with wider range. No need for the locked-room effect. That was pleasing, but not essential.
An alibi for one o’clock in the afternoon. He did not care to use Faith again. He did not want to see her in his larval stage. He might obtain another traffic ticket. Surely the police would be as good as—
The police. But how perfect. Ideal. To go to headquarters and ask to see the detective working on the Harrison case. Tell him, as a remembered afterthought, about Cousin Stanley’s supposed quarrel with Ash. Be with him at the time Greatuncle Max is to be murdered.
At twelve thirty Mr. Partridge left his house for the central police station.
Fergus could hear the old man’s snores from his coign of vigilance. Getting into Maxwell Harrison’s hermitlike retreat had been a simple job. The newspapers had for years so thoroughly covered the old boy’s peculiarities that you knew in advance all you needed to know—his daily habits, his loathing for bodyguards, his favorite spot for napping.
The sun was warm and the hills were peaceful. There was a purling stream at the deep bottom of the gully beside Fergus. Old Maxwell Harrison did well to sleep in such perfect solitude.
Fergus was on his third cigarette before he heard a sound. It was a very little sound, the turning of a pebble, perhaps; but here in this loneliness any sound that was not a snore or a stream seemed infinitely loud.
Fergus flipped his cigarette into the depths of the gully and moved, as noiselessly as was possible, toward the sound, screening himself behind scraggly bushes.
The sight, even though expected, was nonetheless startling in this quiet retreat: a plump bald man of middle age advancing on tiptoe with a long knife gleaming in his upraised hand.
Fergus flung himself forward. His left hand caught the knife-brandishing wrist and his right pinioned Mr. Partridge’s other arm behind him. The face of Mr. Partridge, that had been so bland a mask of serene exaltation as he advanced to his prey, twisted itself into something between rage and terror.
His body twisted itself, too. It was an instinctive, untrained movement, but timed so nicely by accident that it tore his knife hand free from Fergus’ grip and allowed it to plunge downward.
The twist of Fergus’ body was deft and conscious, but it was not quite enough to avoid a stinging flesh wound in the shoulder. He felt warm blood trickling down his back. Involuntarily he released his grip on Mr. Partridge’s other arm.
Mr. Partridge hesitated for a moment, as though uncertain whether his knife should taste of Great-uncle Max or first dispose of Fergus. The hesitation was understandable, but fatal. Fergus sprang forward in a flying tackle aimed at Mr. Partridge’s knees. Mr. Partridge lifted his foot to kick that advancing green-eyed face. He swung and felt his balance going. Then the detective’s shoulder struck him. He was toppling, falling over backward, falling, falling—
The old man was still snoring when Fergus returned from his climb down the gully. There was no doubt that Harrison Partridge was dead. No living head could loll so limply on its neck.
And Fergus had killed him. Call it an accident, call it self-defense, call it what you will. Fergus had brought him to a trap, and in that trap he had died.
The brand of Cain may be worn in varying manners. To M
r. Partridge it had assumed the guise of an inspiring panache, a banner with a strange device. But Fergus wore his brand with a difference.
He could not blame himself morally, perhaps, for Mr. Partridge’s death. But he could blame himself for professional failure in that death. He had no more proof than before to free Simon Ash, and he had burdened himself with a killing.
For murder can spread in concentric circles, and Fergus O’Breen, who had set out to trap a murderer, now found himself being one.
Fergus hesitated in front of Mr. Partridge’s workshop. It was his last chance. There might be evidence here—the machine itself or some document that could prove his theory even to the skeptical eye of Detective Lieutenant A. Jackson. Housebreaking would be a small offense to add to his record now. The window on the left, he thought—
“Hi!” said Lieutenant Jackson cheerfully. “You on his trail, too?”
Fergus tried to seem his usual jaunty self. “Hi, Andy. So you’ve finally got around to suspecting Partridge?”
“Is he your mysterious X? I thought he might be.”
“And that’s what brings you out here?”
“No. He roused my professional suspicions all by himself. Came into the office an hour ago with the damnedest cock-and-bull story about some vital evidence he’d forgotten. Stanley Harrison’s last words, it seems, were about a quarrel with Simon Ash. It didn’t ring good—seemed like a deliberate effort to strengthen the case against Ash. As soon as I could get free, I decided to come out and have a further chat with the lad.”
“I doubt if he’s home,” said Fergus.
“We can try.” Jackson rapped on the door of the workshop. It was opened by Mr. Partridge.
Mr. Partridge held in one hand the remains of a large open-face ham sandwich. When he had opened the door, he picked up with the other hand the remains of a large whisky and soda. He needed sustenance before this bright new adventure.
Fresh light gleamed in his eyes as he saw the two men standing there. His Javert! Two Javerts! The unofficial detective who had so brilliantly challenged him, and the official one who was to provide his alibi.
He hardly heeded the opening words of the official detective nor the look of dazed bewilderment on the face of the other. He opened his lips and the Great Harrison Partridge, shedding the last vestigial vestments of the cocoon, spoke:
“You may know the truth for what good it will do you. The life of the man Ash means nothing to me. I can triumph over him even though he live. I killed Stanley Harrison. Take that statement and do with it what you can. I know that an uncorroborated confession is useless to you. If you can prove it, you may have me. And I shall soon commit another sacrifice, and you are powerless to stop me. Because, you see, you are already too late.” He laughed softly.
Mr. Partridge closed the door and locked it. He finished the sandwich and the whisky, hardly noticing the poundings on the door. He picked up the knife and went to his machine. His face was a bland mask of serene exaltation.
Lieutenant Jackson hurled himself against the door, a second too late. It was a matter of minutes before he and a finally aroused Fergus had broken it down.
“He’s gone,” Jackson stated puzzledly. “There must be a trick exit somewhere.”
“ ‘Locked room,’ ” Fergus murmured. His shoulder ached, and the charge against the door had set it bleeding again.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. Look, Andy. When do you go off duty?”
“Strictly speaking, I’m off now. I was making this checkup on my own time.”
“Then let us, in the name of seventeen assorted demigods of drunkenness, go drown our confusions.”
Fergus was still asleep when Lieutenant Jackson’s phone call came the next morning. His sister woke him, and watched him come into acute and painful wakefulness as he listened, nodding and muttering, “Yes,” or, “I’ll be—”
Maureen waited till he had hung up, groped about, and found and lighted a cigarette. Then she said, “Well?”
“Remember that Harrison case I was telling you about yesterday?”
“The time-machine stuff? Yes.”
“My murderer, Mr. Partridge—they found him in a gully out on his greatuncle’s estate. Apparently slipped and killed himself while attempting his second murder—that’s the way Andy sees it. Had a knife with him. So, in view of that and a sort of confession he made yesterday, Andy’s turning Simon Ash loose. He still doesn’t see how Partridge worked the first murder, but he doesn’t have to bring it into court now.”
“Well? What’s the matter? Isn’t that fine?”
“Matter? Look, Maureen Macushla. I killed Partridge. I didn’t mean to, and maybe you could call it justifiable; but I did. I killed him at one o’clock yesterday afternoon. Andy and I saw him at two; he was then eating a ham sandwich and drinking whisky. The stomach analysis proves that he died half an hour after that meal, when I was with Andy starting out on a bender of bewilderment. So you see?”
“You mean he went back afterward to kill his uncle and then you . . . you saw him after you’d killed him only before he went back to be killed? Oh, how awful.”
“Not just that, my sweeting. This is the humor of it: The time alibi, the elsewhen that gave the perfect cover up for Partridge’s murder—it gives exactly the same ideal alibi to his own murderer.”
Maureen started to speak and stopped. “Oh!” she gasped.
“What?”
“The time machine. It must still be there—somewhere—mustn’t it? Shouldn’t you—
Fergus laughed, and not at comedy. “That’s the payoff of perfection on this opus. I gather Partridge and his sister didn’t love each other too dearly. You know what her first reaction was to the news of his death? After one official tear and one official sob, she went and smashed the hell out of his workshop.”
The Pink Caterpillar
“And their medicine men can do time travel, too,” Norm Harker said. “At least, that’s the firm belief everywhere on the island: a tualala can go forward in time and bring you back any single item you specify, for a price. We used to spend the night watches speculating on what would be the one best thing to order.”
Norman hadn’t told us the name of the island. The stripe and a half on his sleeve lent him discretion, and Tokyo hadn’t learned yet what secret installations the Navy had been busy with on that minute portion of the South Pacific. He couldn’t talk about the installations, of course; but the island had provided him with plenty of other matters to keep us entertained, sitting up there in the Top of the Mark.
“What would you order, Tony,” he asked, “with a carte blanche like that on the future?”
“How far future?”
“They say a tualala goes to one hundred years from date: no more, no less.”
“Money wouldn’t work,” I mused. “Jewels maybe. Or a gadget—any gadget— and you could invent it as of now and make a fortune. But then it might depend on principles not yet worked out . . . Or the Gone with the Wind of the twenty-first century—but publish it now and it might lay an egg. Can you imagine today’s best sellers trying to compete with Dickens? No . . . it’s a tricky question. What did you try?”
“We finally settled on Hitler’s tombstone. Think of the admission tickets we could sell to see that!”
“And—?”
“And nothing. We couldn’t pay the tualala!s price. For each article fetched through time he wanted one virgin from the neighboring island. We felt the staff somehow might not understand if we went collecting them. There’s always a catch to magic,” Norman concluded lightly.
Fergus said “Uh-huh” and nodded gravely. He hadn’t been saying much all evening—just sitting there and looking out over the panorama of the bay by night, a glistening joy now that the dimout was over, and listening. I still don’t know the sort of work he’s been doing, but it’s changing him, toning him down.
But even a toned-down Irishman can stand only so much silence, and there was obv
iously a story on his lips. Norm asked, “You’ve been running into magic too?”
“Not lately.” He held his glass up to the light and watched his drink. “Damned if I know why writers call a highball an amber liquid,” he observed. “Start a cliche and it sticks . . . Like about detectives being hardheaded realists. Didn’t you ever stop to think that there’s hardly another profession outside the clergy that’s so apt to run up against the things beyond realism? Why do you call in a detective? Because something screwy’s going on and you need an explanation. And if there isn’t an explanation . . .
“This was back a ways. Back when I didn’t have anything worse to deal with than murderers and, once, a werewolf. But he was a hell of a swell guy. The murderers I used to think were pretty thorough low-lifes, but now . . . Anyway, this was back then. I was down in Mexico putting the finishing touches on that wacky business of the Aztec Calendar when I heard from Dan Rafetti. I think you know him, Tony; he’s an investigator for Southwest National Life Insurance, and he’s thrown some business my way now and then, like the Solid Key case.
“This one sounded interesting. Nothing spectacular, you understand, and probably no money to speak of. But the kind of crazy unexplained little detail that stirs up the O’Breen curiosity. Very simple: Southwest gets a claim from a beneficiary. One of their customers died down in Mexico and his sister wants the cash. They send to the Mexican authorities for a report on his death and it was heart failure and that’s that. Only the policy is made out to Mr. Frank Miller and the Mexican report refers to him as Dr. F. Miller. They ask the sister and she’s certain he hasn’t any right to such a title. So I happen to be right near Tlichotl, where he died, and would I please kind of nose around and see was there anything phony, like maybe an imposture. Photographs and fingerprints, from a Civil Service application he once made, enclosed.”
“Nice businesslike beginning,” Norman said.
The Compleat Boucher Page 12