“You say he had some sort of machine beside him?”
Simon Ash was suddenly excited. “You’ve got it. That’s it.”
“That’s what?”
“Who it was. Or who I thought it was. Mr. Partridge. He’s some sort of a cousin of Mr. Harrison’s. Screwball inventor.”
“Miss Preston, I’ll have to ask you more questions. Too many signposts keep pointing one way, and even if that way’s a blind alley I’ve got to go up it. When Mr. Partridge called on you yesterday afternoon, what did he do to you?”
“Do to me?” Faith’s voice wavered. “What on earth do you mean?”
“It was obvious from your manner earlier that there was something about that scene you wanted to forget.”
“He— Oh, no, I can’t. Must I tell you, Mr. O’Breen?”
“Simon Ash says the jail is not bad after what he’s heard of jails, but still—”
“All right, I’ll tell you. But it was strange. I . . . I suppose I’ve known for a long time that Mr. Partridge was—well, you might say in love with me. But he’s so much older than I am and he’s very quiet and never said anything about it and—well, there it was, and I never gave it much thought one way or another. But yesterday— It was as though . . . as though he were possessed. All at once it seemed to burst out and there he was making love to me. Frightfully, horribly, I couldn’t stand it. I ran away. That’s all there was to it. But it was terrible.”
“You pitched me a honey this time, Andy.”
Lieutenant Jackson grinned. “Thought you’d appreciate it, Fergus.”
“But look: What have you got against Ash but the physical set-up of a locked room? The oldest cliche in murderous fiction, and not unheard of in fact.”
“Show me how to unlock this one and your Mr. Ash is a free man.”
“Set that aside for the moment. But look at my suspect, whom we will call, for the sake of novelty, X. X is a mild-mannered, inoffensive man who stands to gain several million by Harrison’s death. He shows up at the library just before the murder. He’s a crackpot inventor, and he has one of his gadgets with him. He shows an alibiconscious awareness of time. He tries to get the butler to think he called earlier. He calls a witness’s attention ostentatiously to a radio time signal. And most important of all, psychologically, he changes. He stops being mild-mannered and inoffensive. He goes on the make for a girl with physical violence. The butler describes him as a different man; he’s grown.”
Jackson drew a note pad toward him. “Your X sounds worth questioning, to say the least. But this reticence isn’t like you, Fergus. Why all this innuendo? Why aren’t you telling me to get out of here and arrest him?”
Fergus was not quite his cocky self. “Because, you see, that alibi I mentioned— well, it’s good. I can’t crack it. It’s perfect.”
Lieutenant Jackson shoved the pad away. “Run away and play,” he said wearily.
“It couldn’t be phony at the other end?” Fergus urged. “Some gadget planted to produce those screams at five o’clock to give a fake time for the murder?”
Jackson shook his head. “Harrison finished tea around four-thirty. Stomach analysis shows the food had been digested just about a half-hour. No, he died at five o’clock, all right.”
“X’s alibi’s perfect, then,” Fergus repeated. “Unless . . . unless—” His green eyes blinked with amazed realization. “Oh, my dear God—” he said softly.
Mr. Partridge was finding life pleasant to lead. Of course this was only a transitional stage. At present he was merely the—what was the transitional stage between cocoon and fully developed insect? Larva? Imago? Pupa? Outside of his own electro-inventive field, Mr. Partridge was not a well-informed man. That must be remedied. But let the metaphor go. Say simply that he was now in the transition between the meek worm that had been Mr. Partridge and the Great Harrison Partridge who would emerge triumphant when Great-uncle Max died and Faith forgot that poor foolish doomed young man.
Even Agatha he could tolerate more easily in this pleasant state, although he had nonetheless established permanent living quarters in his workroom. She had felt her own pleasure at the prospect of being an heiress, but had expressed it most properly by buying sumptuous mourning for Cousin Stanley—the most expensive clothes that she had bought in the past decade. And her hard edges were possibly softening a little—or was that the pleasing haze, almost like that of drunkenness, which now tended to soften all hard edges for Mr. Partridge’s delighted eyes?
It was in the midst of some such reverie as this that Mr. Partridge, lolling idly in his workshop with an unaccustomed tray of whisky, ice and siphon beside him, casually overheard the radio announce the result of the fourth race at Hialeah and noted abstractedly that a horse named Karabali had paid forty-eight dollars and sixty cents on a two-dollar ticket. He had almost forgotten the only half-registered fact when the phone rang.
He answered, and a grudging voice said, “You can sure pick ’em. That’s damned near five grand you made on Karabali.”
Mr. Partridge fumbled with vocal noises.
The voice went on, “What shall I do with it? Want to pick it up tonight or—”
Mr. Partridge had been making incredibly rapid mental calculations. “Leave it in my account for the moment,” he said firmly. “Oh, and—I’m afraid I’ve mislaid your telephone number.”
“Trinity 2897. Got any more hunches now?”
“Not at the moment. I’ll let you know.”
Mr. Partridge replaced the receiver and poured himself a stiff drink. When he had downed it, he went to the machine and traveled two hours back. He returned to the telephone, dialed TR 2897, and said, “I wish to place a bet on the fourth race at Hialeah. ”
The same voice said, “And who’re you?”
“Partridge. Harrison Partridge.”
“Look, brother. I don’t take bets by phone unless I see
