Shock Treatment by James Hadley Chase Read Free Book Online

electric chair!
    I kept moving because I was scared if he saw the expression on my face he would know I was planning to kill him.
    I said over my shoulder, “Yes, I can fix that for you, Mr Delaney.”
    I went straight back to my cabin to examine this idea he had given me. I was pretty sure this was the solution to the problem I had been wrestling with last night: how to kill him and get away with it.
    I realized now the only safe way to kill him was to make his death look like an accident.
    Death by accidental electrocution was the answer. It had to look like an accident, so Sheriff Jefferson would be the one to handle the investigation. If it looked like murder, Jefferson would have to call in the Los Angeles police, and I wasn’t going to risk having those experts making an investigation.
    It wouldn’t be difficult to fool an old man like Jefferson, but I didn’t kid myself I could fool Lieutenant John Boos of the LA Homicide Squad. I had met him once when I had worked in Los Angeles, and I knew him to be a hard, smart cop with a long string of murder arrests to his name. I had no intention of tangling with him.
    The accidental electrocution idea was right, but there were some obvious snags I had to solve before I could put the plan into operation.
    The first move was to complete the set I was building. So I went over to the shed I used as my workshop and started to build the set.
    As I worked I thought of Gilda.
    With every wire I soldered into place, with every valve I put into position, I told myself I was getting nearer to giving Gilda her freedom and beginning a new life with her.
    I must have been out of my head, but that’s the way a man can act when he is in love with a woman just out of his reach as I was with Gilda.
     
    II
     
    First thing on Monday morning, I loaded the set onto the truck and drove over to Blue Jay cabin.
    I hadn’t seen Gilda since Delaney had hit her, and I wasn’t anxious to see her. I had thought of her ceaselessly, but I didn’t want to meet her face to face until I had completed my plan. I was scared she might say something that would turn me away from the plan, and I was determined to go through with it if it was the last thing I did.
    As I drove up towards the cabin, I saw her washing down the Buick.
    I didn’t slow down.
    She glanced around, and for a brief moment our eyes met, then I was past her.
    Delaney was reading the newspaper. He looked up as he heard the truck and, dropping the paper, he wheeled himself to the rail of the verandah.
    “Here it is, Mr Delaney,” I said, “as promised.”
    “Nice work, Regan. What’s it like?”
    “You can judge that for yourself,” I said and carried the loudspeaker up the steps and into the lounge.
    It took me about half an hour to install the set, then I explained to Delaney how it operated.
    As soon as I put an LP record on the turntable and turned up the volume, I could see the impact the reproduction made on him was what I had been sure it would be.
    “Why, it’s like having a live orchestra in the room!”
    What pleased him most was the remote control unit which I clipped to the arm of his chair. It was a small thing with three knobs: one to turn the set on and off, the other two to take care of the contrast and the volume.
    When I had bought the control unit each knob had been heavily insulated with rubber caps. These I had removed together with the rubber backing so that its steel base now rested on the steel arm of Delaney’s chair.
    Finally, after he had examined everything, tested everything and watched a short film on the TV, Delaney turned the set off, using the control unit, and he looked at me, his face animated.
    “Some set! It’s a sale!”
    “You have the best, Mr Delaney,” I said, my eyes on his hand, resting on the control unit.
    Then he said something that showed me that luck was working on my side, “You don’t happen to know of a woman who would come out here and run the cabin, do you? This damned