“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
