Tickled to Death and Other Stories of Crime and Suspense (14 page)

“I'm sure it will,” Partridge agreed. And then he couldn't resist saying, “Though with a bit of luck I won't be here to feel it.”

“You are thinking of moving then?”

“Maybe. Maybe.” And Humphrey Partridge left the shop with his newspapers, unwontedly frisky.

“I think,” pronounced Mrs Denton, focusing her malevolence, “there's something going on there.”

“You wanted to see me, Partridge?”

“Yes, Mr Brownlow.”

“Well, make it snappy. I've just flown back from Rome. As it turns out I could have made the Antwerp conference. Still, it's giving young Dyett a chance to win his spurs. What was it you wanted, Partridge?” Mr Brownlow stifled a yawn.

“I've come to give in my notice.”

“You mean you want to leave?”

“Yes.”

“This is rather unexpected.”

“Yes, Mr Brownlow.”

“I see.” Mr Brownlow swivelled his chair in irritation. “Have you had an offer from another company?”

“No.”

“No, I hardly thought . . .”

“I'm going abroad. With my mother.”

“Of course. May one ask where?”

“Canada.”

“Ah. Reputed to be a land of opportunity. Are you starting a new career out there?”

“I don't know. I may not work.”

“Oh, come into money, have we?” But he received no answer to the question. “Okay, if you'd rather not say, that's your business. I won't inquire further. Well, I hope you know what you're doing. I'll need a month's notice in writing.”

“Is it possible for me to go sooner?”

“A month's notice is customary.” Mr Brownlow's temper suddenly gave. “No, sod it, I don't want people here unwillingly. Just go. Go today!”

“Thank you.”

“Of course, we do usually give a farewell party to departing staff, but in your case . . .”

“It won't be necessary.”

“Too bloody right it won't be necessary.” Mr Brownlow's eyes blazed. “Get out!”

Partridge got home just before lunch in high spirits. Shamelessly using Brownlow and Potter's telephones for private calls, he had rung an estate agent to put his house on the market and made positive enquiries of the Canadian High Commission about emigration. He burst through the front door and called out his customary, “Hello, Mother. I'm home.”

The words died on his lips as he saw Reg Carter emerging from his kitchen. “Good God, what are you doing here? This is private property.”

“I was doing my rounds with the second post.”

“How did you get in?”

“I had to break a window.”

“You had no right. That's breaking and entering. I'll call the police.”

“It's all right. I've already called them. I've explained it all to Sergeant Wallace.”

Partridge's face was the colour of putty. “Explained what?” he croaked.

“About the fire.” Then again, patiently, because Partridge didn't seem to be taking it in. “The fire. There was a fire. In your kitchen. I saw the smoke as I came past. You'd left the toaster on this morning. It had got the tea towel and the curtains were just beginning to go. So I broke in.”

Partridge now looked human again. “I understand. I'm sorry I was so suspicious. It's just . . . Thank you.”

“Don't mention it,” said Reg Carter, with an insouciance he'd learned from some television hero. “It was just I thought, what with your mother upstairs, I couldn't afford to wait and call the fire brigade. What with her not being able to move and all.”

“That was very thoughtful. Thank you.” Unconsciously Partridge was edging round the hall, as if trying to usher the postman out. But Reg Carter stayed firmly in the kitchen doorway. Partridge reached vaguely towards his wallet. “I feel I should reward you in some way . . .”

“No, I don't want no reward. I just did it to save the old lady.”

Partridge gave a little smile and nervous nod of gratitude.

“I mean, it would be awful for her to be trapped. Someone helpless like that.”

“Yes.”

Up until this point the postman's tone had been tentative, but, as he continued, he became more forceful. “After I'd put the fire out, I thought I ought to see if she was all right. She might have smelt burning or heard me breaking in and been scared out of her wits . . . . So I called up the stairs to her. She didn't answer.”

The colour was once again dying rapidly from Partridge's face. “No, she's very deaf. She wouldn't hear you.”

“No. So I went upstairs,” Reg Carter continued inexorably. “All the doors were closed. I opened one. I reckon it must be your room. Then I opened another. There was a bed there. But there was no one in it.”

“No.”

“There was no one in the bathroom. Or anywhere. The house was empty.”

“Yes.”

The postman looked for a moment at his quarry, then said, “I thought that was rather strange, Mr Partridge. I mean, you told us all your mother was bedridden and lived here.”

“She does—I mean she did.” The colour was back in his cheeks in angry blushes.

“Did?”

“Yes, she died,” said Partridge quickly.

“Died? When? You said this morning when I asked after her that—”

“She died a couple of days ago. I'm sorry, I've been in such a state. The shock, you know. You can't believe that it's happened and—”

“When was the funeral?”

A new light of confusion came into Partridge's eyes as he stumbled to answer. “Yesterday. Very recently. It's only just happened. I'm sorry, I'm not thinking straight. I don't know whether I'm coming or going.”

“No.” Reg Carter's voice was studiously devoid of intonation. “I'd better be on my way. Got a couple more letters to deliver, then back to the post office.”

Humphrey Partridge mumbled more thanks as he ushered the postman out of the front door. When he heard the click of the front gate, he sank trembling on to the bottom stair and cried out loud, “Why, why can't they leave us alone?”

Sergeant Wallace was a fat man with a thin, tidy mind. He liked everything in its place and he liked to put it there himself. The one thing that frightened him was the idea of anyone else being brought in to what he regarded as his area of authority, in other words, anything that happened in the village. So it was natural for him, when the rumours about Humphrey Partridge reached unmanageable proportions, to go and see the man himself rather than reporting to his superiors.

It was about a week after the fire. Needless to say, Reg Carter had talked to Mr and Mrs Denton and they had talked to practically everyone who came into the post office. The talk was now so wild that something had to be done.

Humphrey Partridge opened his front door with customary lack of welcome, but Sergeant Wallace forced his large bulk inside, saying he'd come to talk about the fire.

Tea chests in the sitting-room told their own story. “Packing your books I see, Mr Partridge.”

“Yes. Most of my effects will be going to Canada by sea.” Partridge assumed, rightly, that the entire village knew of his impending departure.

“When is it exactly you're off?”

“About a month. I'm not exactly sure.”

Sergeant Wallace settled his uninvited mass into an armchair. “Nice place, Canada, I hear. My nephew's over there.”

“Ah.”

“You'll be buying a place to live . . .?”

“Yes.”

“On your own?”

“Yes.”

“Your mother's no longer with you?”

“No. She . . . she died.”

“Yes. Quite recently, I hear.” Sergeant Wallace stretched out, as if warming himself in front of the empty grate. “It was to some extent about your mother that I called.”

Partridge didn't react, so the Sergeant continued. “As you know, this is a small place and most people take an interest in other people's affairs . . .”

“Can't mind their own bloody business, most of them.”

“Maybe so. Now I don't listen to gossip, but I do have to keep my ear to the ground—that's what the job's about. And I'm afraid I've been hearing some strange things about you recently, Mr Partridge.” Sergeant Wallace luxuriated in another pause. “People are saying things about your mother's death. I realize, being so recent, you'd probably rather not talk about it.”

“Fat chance I have of that. Already I'm getting anonymous letters and phone calls about it.”

“And you haven't reported them?”

“Look, I'll be away soon. And none of it will matter.”

“Hmm.” The Sergeant decided the moment had come to take the bull by the horns. “As you'll probably know from these letters and telephone calls then, people are saying you killed your mother for her money.”

“That is libellous nonsense!”

“Maybe. I hope so. If you can just answer a couple of questions for me, then I'll know so. Tell me first, when did your mother die?”

“Ten days ago. The eleventh.”

“Are you sure? It was on the eleventh that you had the fire and Reg Carter found the house empty.”

“I'm sorry. A couple of days before that. It's been such a shock, I . . .”

“Of course.” Sergeant Wallace nodded soothingly. “And so the funeral must have been on the tenth?”

“Some time round then, yes.”

“Strange that none of the local undertakers had a call from you.”

“I used a firm from town, one I have connections with.”

“I see.” Sergeant Wallace looked rosier than ever as he warmed to his task. “And no doubt it was a doctor from town who issued the death certificate?”

“Yes.”

“Do you happen to have a copy of that certificate?” the Sergeant asked sweetly.

Humphrey Partridge looked weakly at his tormentor and murmured, “You know I don't.”

“If there isn't a death certificate,” mused Sergeant Wallace agonizingly slowly, “then that suggests there might be something unusual about your mother's death.”

“Damn you! Damn you all!” Partridge was almost sobbing with passion. “Why can't you leave me alone? Why are you always prying?”

The Sergeant recovered from his surprise. “Mr Partridge, if a crime's been committed—”

“No crime's been committed!” Partridge shouted in desperate exasperation. “I haven't got a mother. I never saw my mother. She walked out on me when I was six months old and I was brought up in care.”

“Then who was living upstairs?” asked Sergeant Wallace logically.

“Nobody. I live on my own, I always have lived on my own. Don't you see, I hate people.” The confession was costing Partridge a lot, but he was too wound up to stop its outpouring. “People are always trying to find out about you, to probe, to know you. They want to invade your house, take you out for drinks, invade your privacy. I can't stand it. I just want to be on my own!”

Sergeant Wallace tried to interject, but Partridge steam-rollered on. “But you can't be alone. People won't let you. You have to have a reason. So I invented my mother. I couldn't do things, I couldn't see people, because I had to get back to my mother. She was ill. And my life worked very well like that. I even began to believe in her, to talk to her. She never asked questions, she didn't want to know anything about me, she just loved me and was kind and beautiful. And I loved her. I wouldn't kill her—I wouldn't lay a finger on her—it's you, all of you who've killed her!” He was now weeping uncontrollably. “Damn you, damn you.”

Sergeant Wallace took a moment or two to organize this new information in his mind. “So what you're telling me is, there never was any mother. You made her up. You couldn't have killed her, because she never lived.”

“Yes,” said Partridge petulantly. “Can't you get that through your thick skull?”

“Hmm. And how do you explain that you suddenly have enough money to emigrate and buy property in Canada?”

“My premium bond came up. I got the letter on the morning of the fire. That's why I forgot to turn the toaster off. I was so excited.”

“I see.” Sergeant Wallace lifted himself ponderously out of his chair and moved across to the window. “Been digging in the garden, I see.”

“Yes, I put some bulbs in.”

“Bulbs, and you're about to move.” The Sergeant looked at his quarry. “That's very public-spirited of you, Mr Partridge.”

The post office was delighted with the news of Partridge's arrest. Mrs Denton was firmly of the opinion that she had thought there was something funny going on and recognized Partridge's homicidal tendencies. Reg Carter bathed in the limelight of having set the investigation in motion and Sergeant Wallace, though he regretted the intrusion of the C.I.D. into his patch, felt a certain satisfaction for his vital groundwork.

The Dentons were certain Reg would be called as a witness at the trial and thought there was a strong possibility that they might be called as character witnesses. Mrs Denton bitterly regretted the demise of the death penalty, feeling that prison was too good for people who strangled old ladies in their beds. Every passing shopper brought news of developments in the case, how the police had dug up the garden, how they had taken up the floorboards, how they had been heard tapping the walls of Partridge's house. Mrs Denton recommended that they should sift through the ashes of the boiler.

So great was the community interest in the murder that the cries of disbelief and disappointment were huge when the news came through that the charges against Partridge had been dropped. The people of the village felt that they had been robbed of a pleasure which, by any scale of values, was rightfully theirs.

But as the details seeped out, it was understood that Partridge's wild tale to Sergeant Wallace was true. There had been no one else living in the house. He had had a large premium bond win. And the last record of Partridge's real mother dated from four years previously when she had been found guilty of soliciting in Liverpool and sentenced to two months in prison.