More Deadly Than The Male by James Hadley Chase Read Free Book Online Page A

and call, as he always called, "Anyone in?" He would never again say, looking round the door, a frown on his fat, heavy face, "Put that damn pistol down. How many more times do I have to tell you not to touch it?" It meant that the pistol was now without an owner. His foster mother had never taken any interest in it. She probably would never think of it, never ask for it. So, while the police sergeant was still muttering and mumbling, George had slipped from the room and gone directly to the place where the pistol was concealed. He would never forget the ecstatic surge of emotion that had flowed through him as he carried the cardboard box from his foster father's room to his own. For thirteen years the pistol had remained George's most cherished possession.

    Every day he found time to take the pistol from its box. He cleaned it, polished its black metal and removed and replaced its magazine. It gave George an immense feeling of superiority to hold this heavy weapon in his hand. He would imagine with satisfaction how those who had been rude to him during his evening's work would react if they were suddenly confronted with this pistol. He pictured Mr Eccles' reaction if he had produced the Luger, and the horror and fear that would have come to the big, flat face with its ridiculous blond moustache.

    George's finger curled round the trigger, and his face became grim.

    . . . "Get a fistful o f cloud," George Fraser snarled, ramming his rod into Eccles' back. "We want those names and we're going to have 'em."

    Sydney Brant, white-faced, his eyes wide with alarm, crouched against the wall.

    "Don't shoot him, George," he gasped. "For God's sake, be careful with that gun."
    "Take it easy, Syd," George Fraser returned with a confident smile. "I've stood enough from this rat." He jabbed Eccles again with the gun. "Come on, are you giving me the names or do I have to ventilate your hide?"

    "I'll do anything," Eccles quavered. "Don't shoot—do anything you say."

    "Get on with it, then," George Fraser said impatiently, "and if you try to pull a fast one, I'll blast you!"

    When the terrified man had left the room, George Fraser wandered to the desk and sat on it, swinging his legs. He winked at Brant, who was gaping at him in open admiration . . .

    George sighed. That was the way to treat swine like Eccles. He fondled the gun. Brant wouldn't be so keen to sneer and jeer if he thought George would stick this suddenly into his ribs. George had no time for cheap tricks. Look at the way Brant had got those names and addresses. Just a cheap trick. If that was the way he was going to cover the territory, Wembley would be useless for another World-Wide salesman to work. Of course, Brant wouldn't care. He was just a selfish, small-minded trickster. So long as he got what he wanted he didn't think of anyone else.

    George pulled the magazine from the gun and turned it over absently between his fingers. Still, there was something about Brant. He was more powerful, more domineering than George. George knew that. But George with the Luger was more than a match for anyone, including Brant. 

    George picked up the oily rag at the bottom of the box and wiped the gun over carefully. Then he picked up the wooden box of cartridges and slid off the lid. The cartridges were packed in rows of five, tight and shiny He had never put a cartridge into the magazine. He always made a point of keeping the cartridges away from the pistol. Having cleaned the weapon, he would return it to its cardboard box before taking out each cartridge and polishing the brass cases. He had never wished to fire the gum, and the idea of feeding these small, shiny cartridges into the magazine alarmed him He had read so much about gun accidents that he was acutely conscious how easily something tragic might happen. In spite of his violent imagination, he would have been horrified if, through his own carelessness, anyone was hurt.

    Time was getting on. It still rained, but rain