Mediterranean Nights by Dennis Wheatley Read Free Book Online Page B

see it all again as clear as clear, from the moment he picked me up.
    â€˜I waited till the car had reduced speed going up the hill, then used my elbow to jab him in the ribs with all my force. As he doubled up his hands lost their grip on the wheel. The car swerved and ran into the ditch. His head shot forwardand splintered the windscreen, but I was braced ready for the crash, so suffered no harm. It was a nasty moment when I felt his heart and found it still going. That meant I’d got to go through with the whole business and count on the hiker set-up. Pulling on a pair of gloves, I yanked the tyre-lever out from under the seat and gave him a crack on the back of the head. The one blow settled his hash all right; so I dropped the blunt instrument into the back of the car, whisked his wallet and scrambled out into the road.
    â€˜A quick look round showed me that there was no one about, and I intended to go home as though nothing had happened; but I still had fifty yards to cover to the farm-yard when I spotted a lorry in the distance. Its driver might have seen that I was walking away from the ditched car, so I had to play for safety by running up to the house and breaking the news to Minnie myself.
    â€˜I told her that I had come on the car with the old boy dead in it as I was walking home from the four acre. Naturally she went a bit white, and whiter still when I added: “It wasn’t an accident. His wallet’s gone with tomorrow’s wages. Some roughneck that he gave a lift to slogged him on the head. It looks like the work of one of those tough young conscripts up at the camp—probably he done it to get money to desert with.”
    â€˜ “Why d’you think that?” she asked after a moment. “Did whoever done it leave anything behind?”
    â€˜ “No,” I said, “I wish they had, though; or that someone else had been the first to find your uncle. As we’re the gainers by his death it’s just on the cards that the police may think I had a hand in it.”
    â€˜Selling her that line was typical of smart little Arty. My saying that I might be suspected was a cert for killing any faint suspicion of me that she might have herself. She reacted instantly, and exclaimed:
    â€˜ “Oh, Arty, that would be awful! They’re so clever it’s certain they’d twist whatever you say against you. Couldn’t we do something to take their minds off even getting the idea that it might have been you?” Then I could almost see her poor brain creaking before she stammered: “Couldn’t… couldn’t we put something in the back of the car as thoughit had been left by whoever done it—some old thing that doesn’t belong to us?”
    â€˜The notion of laying a false trail hadn’t occurred to me; but it seemed a good one and exceptionally bright for her. But the very next moment she showed how damn’ stupid she really is by anteing up a suggestion which might quite well frame her own boy-friend for the murder. A few evenings before, the corporal had made her a present of a few tinned things from the N.A.A.F.I. He’d forgotten to take away the old haversack in which he’d brought them and it was hanging up there in the hall, where we were talking. Pulling it off the peg she said:
    â€˜ “Here, take this! It might belong to any soldier, so you couldn’t have nothing better.”
    â€˜She hadn’t the sense to realise that it would have the Corp’s name and number in it. How far the two of them have gone together when I’ve been out of the way, I don’t know—or care; but if he can’t prove an alibi, he’s going to pay plenty for having fooled around with another chap’s wife.
    â€˜I had hardly agreed to her suggestion when there came a knock on the door. It was the driver of the lorry. On coming up the hill he had seen the ditched car, got out to have a look, then walked