“Yes, I—”
“Are you Miss Preston? His fiancee?”
“Yes.” Her eyes widened. “How did you— Oh, has something happened to Simon?”
The young officer looked unhappy. “I’m afraid something has. Though he’s perfectly safe at the moment. You see, he— Damn it all, I never have been able to break such news gracefully.”
The uniformed officer broke in. “They took him down to headquarters, miss. You see, it looks like he bumped off his boss.”
Faith did not quite faint, but the world was uncertain for a few minutes. She hardly heard Lieutenant Jackson’s explanations or the message of comfort that Simon had left for her. She simply held very tight to her chair until the ordinary outlines of things came back and she could swallow again.
“Simon is innocent,” she said firmly.
“I hope he is.” Jackson sounded sincere. “I’ve never enjoyed pinning a murder on as decent-seeming a fellow as your fiance. But the case, I’m afraid, is too clear. If he is innocent, he’ll have to tell us a more plausible story than his first one. Murderers that turn a switch and vanish into thin air are not highly regarded by most juries.”
Faith rose. The world was firm again, and one fact was clear. ‘Simon is innocent,” she repeated. “And I’m going to prove that. Will you please tell me where I can get a detective?”
The uniformed officer laughed. Jackson started to, but hesitated. “Of course, Miss Preston, the city’s paying my salary under the impression that I’m one. But I see what you mean: You want a freer investigator, who won’t be hampered by such considerations as the official viewpoint, or even the facts of the case. Well, it’s your privilege.”
“Thank you. And how do I go about finding out?”
“Acting as an employment agency’s a little out of my line. But rather than see you tie up with some shyster shamus, I’ll make a recommendation, a man I’ve worked with, or against, on a half dozen cases. And I think this set-up is just impossible enough to appeal to him. He likes lost causes.”
“Lost?” It is a dismal word.
“And in fairness I should add they aren’t always lost after he tackles them. The name’s O’Breen—Fergus O’Breen.”
Mr. Partridge dined out that night. He could not face the harshness of Agatha’s tongue. After dinner he made a round of the bars on the Strip and played the pleasant game of “If only they knew who was sitting beside them.” He felt like Harunal-Rashid, and liked the glow of the feeling.
On his way home he bought the next morning’s Times at an intersection and pulled over to the curb to examine it. He had expected sensational headlines on the mysterious murder which had the police completely baffled. Instead he read:
SECRETARY SLAYS EMPLOYER
After a moment of shock the Great Harrison Partridge was himself again. He had not intended this. He would not willingly cause unnecessary pain to anyone. But lesser individuals who obstruct the plans of the great must take their medicine.
Mr. Partridge drove home, contented. He could spend the night on the cot in his workshop and thus see that much the less of Agatha. He clicked on the workshop light and froze.
There was a man standing by the time machine. The original large machine. Mr. Partridge’s feeling of superhuman self-confidence was enormous but easily undermined, like a vast balloon that needs only the smallest pin prick to shatter it. For a moment he envisioned a scientific master mind of the police who had deduced his method, tracked him here, and discovered his invention.
Then the figure turned.
Mr. Partridge’s terror was only slightly lessened. For the figure was that of Mr. Partridge. There was a nightmare instant when he thought of Doppelganger, Poe’s William Wilson, of dissociated personalities, of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Then this other Mr. Partridge cried aloud and hurried from the room, and the entering one collapsed.
A trough must follow a crest. And now blackness was the inexorable aftermath of Mr. Partridge’s elation. His successful murder, his ardor with Faith, his evening as Harun-al-Rashid, all vanished. He heard horrible noises in the room, and realized only after minutes that they were his own sobs.
Finally he pulled himself to his feet. He bathed his face in cold water from the sink, but still terror gnawed at him. Only one thing could reassure him. Only one thing could still convince him that he was the Great Harrison Partridge. And that was his noble machine. He touched it, caressed it as one might a fine and dearly loved horse.
Mr. Partridge was nervous, and he had been drinking more than his frugal customs allowed. His hand brushed the switch. He looked up and saw himself entering the door. He cried aloud and hurried from the room.
In the cool night air he slowly understood. He had accidentally sent himself back to the time he entered the room, so that upon entering he had seen himself. There was nothing more to it than that. But he made a careful mental note: Always take care, when using the machine, to avoid returning to a time-and-place where you already are. Never meet yourself. The dangers of psychological shock are too great.
Mr. Partridge felt better now. He had frightened himself, had he? Well, he would not be the last to tremble in fear of the Great Harrison Partridge.
Fergus O’Breen, the detective recommended—if you could call it that—by the police lieutenant, had his office in a ramshackle old building at Second and Spring. There were two, she imagined they were clients, in the waiting room ahead of Faith. One looked like the most sodden type of Skid Row loafer, and the elegant disarray of the other could mean nothing but the lower reaches of the upper layers of Hollywood.
The detective, when Faith finally saw him, inclined in costume toward the latter, but he wore sports clothes as though they were pleasantly comfortable, rather than as the badge of a caste. He was a thin young man,
