Simon Ash’s shaggy blond head sank onto the desk. His sleep-heavy hand shoved a pile of cards to the floor, and his mind only faintly registered the thought that they would all have to be alphabetized again. He was too sleepy to think of anything but pleasant things, like the sailboat at Balboa which brightened his weekends, or the hiking trip in the Sierras planned for his next vacation, or above all Faith. Faith the fresh and lovely and perfect, who would be his next month—
There was a smile on Simon’s rugged face as he slept. But he woke with a harsh scream ringing in his head. He sprang to his feet and looked out from the stacks into the library.
The dead hulk that slumped over the desk with the hilt protruding from its back was unbelievable, but even more incredible was the other spectacle. There was a man. His back was toward Simon, but he seemed faintly familiar. He stood close to a complicated piece of gadgetry. There was the click of a switch.
Then there was nothing.
Nothing in the room at all but Simon Ash and an infinity of books. And their dead owner.
Ash ran to the desk. He tried to lift Stanley Harrison, tried to draw out the knife, then realized how hopeless was any attempt to revive life in that body. He reached for the phone, then stopped as he heard the loud knocking on the door.
Over the raps came the butler’s voice. “Mr. Harrison! Are you all right, sir?” A pause, more knocking, and then, “Mr. Harrison! Let me in, sir! Are you all right?”
Simon raced to the door. It was locked, and he wasted almost a minute groping for the key at his feet, while the butler’s entreaties became more urgent. At last Simon opened the door.
Bracket stared at him—stared at his sleep-red eyes, his blood-red hands, and beyond him at what sat at the desk. “Mr. Ash, sir,” the butler gasped. “What have you done?”
Faith Preston was home, of course. No such essential element of Mr. Partridge’s plan could have been left to chance. She worked best in the late afternoons, she said, when she was getting hungry for dinner; and she was working hard this week on some entries for a national contest in soap carving.
The late-afternoon sun was bright in her room, which you might call her studio if you were politely disposed, her garret if you were not. It picked out the few perfect touches of color in the scanty furnishings and converted them into bright aureoles surrounding the perfect form of Faith.
The radio was playing softly. She worked best to music, and that, too, was an integral portion of Mr. Partridge’s plan.
Six minutes of unmemorable small talk—What are you working on? How lovely! And what have you been doing lately? Pottering around as usual. And the plans for the wedding?—and then Mr. Partridge held up a pleading hand for silence.
“When you hear the tone,” the radio announced, “the time will be exactly five seconds before five o’clock.”
“I forgot to wind my watch,” Mr. Partridge observed casually. “I’ve been wondering all day exactly what time it was.” He set his perfectly accurate watch.
He took a long breath. And now at last he knew that he was a new man. He was at last the Great Harrison Partridge.
“What’s the matter?” Faith asked. “You look funny. Could I make you some tea?”
“No. Nothing. I’m all right.” He walked around behind her and looked over her shoulder at the graceful nude emerging from her imprisonment in a cake of soap. “Exquisite, my dear,” he observed. “Exquisite.”
“I’m glad you like it. I’m never happy with female nudes; I don’t think women sculptors ever are. But I wanted to try it.”
Mr. Partridge ran a dry hot finger along the front of the soapen nymph. “A delightful texture,” he remarked. “Almost as delightful as—” His tongue left the speech unfinished, but his hand rounded out the thought along Faith’s cool neck and cheek.
“Why, Mr. Partridge!” She laughed.
The laugh was too much. One does not laugh at the Great Harrison Partridge, time traveler and perfect murderer. There was nothing in his plan that called for what followed. But something outside of any plans brought him to his knees, forced his arms around Faith’s lithe body, pressed tumultuous words of incoherent ardor from his unwonted lips.
He saw fear growing in her eyes. He saw her hand dart out in instinctive defense and he wrested the knife from it. Then his own eyes glinted as he looked at the knife. It was little, ridiculously little. You could never plunge it through a man’s back. But it was sharp—a throat, the artery of a wrist—
His muscles had relaxed for an instant. In that moment of non-vigilance, Faith had wrested herself free. She did not look backward. He heard the clatter of her steps down the stairs, and for a fraction of time the Great Harrison Partridge vanished and Mr. Partridge knew only fear. If he had aroused her hatred, if she should not swear to his alibi—
The fear was soon over. He knew that no motives of enmity could cause Faith to swear to anything but the truth. She was honest. And the enmity itself would vanish when she realized what manner of man had chosen her for his own.
It was not the butler who opened the door to Faith. It was a uniformed policeman, who said, “Whaddaya want here?”
“I’ve got to see Simon . . . Mr. Ash,” she blurted out.
The officer’s expression changed. “C’mon,” and he beckoned her down the long hall.
The tall young man in plain clothes said, “My name is Jackson. Won’t you sit down? Cigarette?” She waved the pack away nervously. “Hinkle says you wanted to
