'Could we have a word with you about Mr Marchat? I apologize again for the inconvenience but it's very urgent.'
'All three of you?' Partridge asked nervously.
'This may reassure you.' Newman produced the Special Branch pass skilfully forged by the boffins in the basement at Park Crescent.
'Special Branch. I've never met anyone from your outfit. Please come in. Sorry about the mess. Let's go into the sitting room. I'll open the curtains…'
He ushered them into a small room on the right overlooking the front garden and the road beyond. When he had pulled back the curtains he invited them to take seats. The room was furnished with chintz armchairs, which matched the curtains. Newman and Philip sat down while Partridge occupied another armchair. Marler, as was his habit, leaned against a wall by the windows. He took out a king-size, put it between his lips, then paused.
'You may smoke,' Partridge assured him. 'Please do. I think I'll have one myself.' he went on, producing a packet from one of his dressing-gown pockets. 'How can I help you, gentlemen?'
'We expected to find Mr Marchat in residence,' Newman explained. 'Could you tell us where he is?'
Despite obvious lack of sleep, Partridge, a man Newman estimated to be in his forties, explained tersely the whole series of events which had brought him to Devastoke Cottage.
'The extraordinary thing is.' he concluded, 'we look very like each other. I was quite startled when I first met him.'
'You think he selected you as a tenant for that reason?' Newman probed.
'Oh, no. We practically agreed I would take this place over the first phone call when I answered his ad in the local paper. Subject, of course, to my liking the place.'
'How long ago is it since you first spoke to him?'
'About a week. No more. Has he done anything wrong?'
'Nothing like that,' Newman assured him. 'He may just be able to help us with our enquiries. He gave you the address of this aunt in London whose flat he was taking over?'
'No, he didn't. He said he would phone me all details as soon as he knew she would definitely be moving. He had no doubt about that.'
'I hope you won't mind my asking this,' Newman said at his most tactful, 'but could you give me proof of your identity?'
'Not at all. You did expect to find Mr Marchat here. So would my driving licence do?'
'That would cover everything.'
While they waited for Partridge to come back Marler, who was still standing to one side of the window, suddenly stepped back against the wall and peered out from behind the folded curtain.
A grey Volvo was cruising very slowly past the cottage from the direction of Stoborough. The windows were misted up but the driver had earlier rubbed a hole in the blurred surface. Marler had a fleeting impression of a tall man behind the wheel. Newman's Mercedes was parked on the grass verge outside the hedge. The Volvo speeded up once it was past the cottage.
'Something wrong?' asked Philip.
Marler had no time to reply as Partridge returned, handed a driving licence to Newman. Glancing at it he saw it was made out in the name Simon Partridge. He handed it back as he stood up.
'Thank you, Mr Partridge. Again, very sorry to disturb your beauty sleep.'
'That's all right.' Partridge glanced at a couch pushed against a wall. 'Think I'll lie down there and leave the curtains open. Otherwise I'll sleep until Heaven knows when. And there's so much to unpack…'
'Strange.' Newman remarked as they walked back down the footpath, 'that Marchat should push off so quickly after the tragedy at Sterndale Mansion.'
'He did start trying to let the place a week ago,' Marler reminded him. 'Seemed a harmless enough cove, that chap Partridge.'
'Funny that business about his likeness to Marchat,' Philip commented.
'Oh, they say we all have a double somewhere,' Newman replied.
The weather had changed while they were inside Devastoke Cottage. The windows on Newman's car had misted up and he began cleaning them with a wash leather. He set the wipers going to clear the windscreen, squeezed out the leather, and dried his hands on another cloth.
'We'd better get back to Wareham. We'll have to face the music sooner or later, the music with a nasty rasp played by Chief Inspector Buchanan. We'll forget we paid a visit to Partridge. Marler, I suggest you keep out of the way, slip back to the Black Bear Inn. No point in letting our favourite policeman know how many of us are down here. That really would rouse his suspicions…'
Marler again coiled himself up on the floor in the rear after retrieving the Armalite he'd hidden under a travel rug. As they headed back for Wareham Philip was thinking about their colleague tucked up in the back. Marler had stood with a faraway look while Newman had cleaned the windows, as though he had something on his mind.
They had passed through Stoborough and were close to the bridge over the Frome when Marler called out.
'Bob, turn back now, please. Drive back to Devastoke Cottage.'
'What the hell for?'
Trust me. Just do it.'
'Oh, all right. You might give me a reason.' he growled as he executed a three-point turn on the straight stretch of road, which was deserted.
'A Volvo cruised slowly past the cottage while we were inside. I didn't like the look of it. The more I think about it I still don't like the look of it.'
'I noticed that car,' Philip recalled. 'It crawled past while Partridge was fetching his driving licence. I thought the driver could be a woman.'
'Hard to tell. It – he or she – was little more than a silhouette,' Marler responded. 'And why are we crawling?'
'Because,' Newman explained as though speaking to a child, 'there's a farm tractor ahead of us with a car behind it. And there's traffic in the opposite direction. I can't overtake. Contain your impatience, we'll soon reach the turn-off lane.'
'And the tractor will go down there,' Marler snapped.
An air of tension was rising inside the car. Newman also was beginning to get worried. He'd had experience of Marler's intuitions and too often they had proved to be well founded. The tractor and the car ahead continued straight on towards Corfe and he turned down the lane where there was no traffic. He accelerated.
'Everything looks the same as before.' Newman remarked as they left the Mercedes parked outside Devastoke Cottage.
'No it isn't.' said Marler and produced his Beretta, holding it close to his side. 'Partridge clearly told us he wasn't going to draw the curtains over the living room while he had some more kip. Well, they're closed now.'
'Could have changed his mind.' Newman pointed out.
'There's a path leading round the side of the cottage, probably to a back door. I suggest we go and see…'
Their feet made no sound on the moss-strewn path and at the rear of the cottage they found the back door. They stopped abruptly as Marler pointed, raised one finger for absolute silence. The back door was slightly ajar, had been jemmied open forcibly, shown by splintered wood in the door jamb. He pushed it open slowly, his gun raised. They crept into a darkened kitchen with an old iron cooker in a setback.
Newman was gripping the. 38 Smith amp; Wesson in his hand and Philip had produced his Walther. They walked slowly into a narrow hall. The door to the sitting room, now on their left, was half open. Marler stood to one side, slowly pushed it wide open. By now their eyes were accustomed to the semidarkness.
'Oh, my God!' Philip whispered.
Partridge was lying half on and half off the couch, his head on the floor, twisted at a bizarre angle. Marler walked in, bent down, checked the carotid artery, looked up.
'Dead as a dodo. His neck is broken. I think I know whose work this is. There's a new assassin on the loose in Europe. Kills for big sums. Simple technique. He comes up behind his victim, slips his arm round the target's neck in a certain way. This is the result. They call him The Motorman.'
