Shock Treatment by James Hadley Chase Read Free Book Online Page B

say so too.
    I was relying on the inefficiency of two old men — Doc Mallard and Sheriff Jefferson — to cover up murder, and in this particular setup in this particular little town, unless I made a really glaring mistake, I was confident I would get away with it.
    I now had three clear days to perfect the plan.
    I had to get a time-switch clock. All the dealers in Los Angeles knew me and they might remember I had bought this article. To be absolutely safe I would have to buy it in San Francisco where I wasn’t known.
    The following day I drove into Los Angeles, and then took the train to San Francisco, arriving there late in the afternoon. I bought the clock. The clerk who served me practically threw it at me so anxious was he to get rid of me and the rest of the customers before closing time and I was sure he wouldn’t recognize me again.
    I got back to my cabin late that night.
    It was then, as I lay in bed, trying to sleep, that I suddenly wondered if I had gone out of my mind to plan such a thing, but when I thought of Gilda, I got my nerve back.
     
    III
     
    Soon after eleven o’clock the following morning, I called Delaney’s cabin.
    As luck would have it, he answered the telephone himself.
    “Regan here, Mr Delaney,” I said. “The set going okay?”
    “Terrific.”
    “I don’t know if you’ve seen the TV programme for Friday,” I said, coming to the real reason why I was calling him. “They are showing the Dempsey fight film.”
    “They are? I didn’t see that. What time is it showing?”
    “Nine forty-five Friday morning.”
    “Well, thanks, Regan: I wouldn’t have missed that for anything.”
    I said I thought he would want to see it and hung up.
    For some moments I stood staring at the telephone. It had been horribly easy. I had no doubt that at around nine-forty Delaney would put his hand on the remote control unit to turn on his set and at that time the unit would be lethal.
    Everything now depended on whether Gilda went to Glyn Camp in the morning. That was the one thing in my plan over which I had no control.
    On the mountain road, a quarter of a mile from Blue Jay cabin there was a place where I could see the cabin far below and part of the road leading to Glyn Camp. I planned to go to this place around eight-thirty in the morning and wait there.
    From this vantage point I could see Gilda leave. If by twenty-past nine she hadn’t left, I would drive fast to Blue Jay cabin and stop Delaney from touching the control unit. I could always cook up some excuse that I wanted to test the set and while doing so I could make the unit safe.
    My next move was an easy one. I put a call through to Jeff Hamish, the writer, who had a de luxe cabin about a mile from me and about a mile and a half from Delaney’s place.
    I knew Hamish was a fanatical collector of LP records and he had quite a library of them. I had picked on him to establish my alibi. He was a well-known writer and, as a witness, he would make a solid impression.
    When I finally got on the telephone, I said, “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr Hamish, but I have a gadget here that’s just made for you. It’s an attachment that cleans a disc while it is playing. There’s a roller dipped in a solution that keeps just ahead of the stylus and really does its job. It’s just the thing for you.”
    “Sounds wonderful. Let’s have a look at it.”
    “I’m passing your way tomorrow morning. Okay if I look in around half-past nine?”
    “Sure, and thanks for remembering me,” and he hung up.
    That was going to be my alibi.
    Delaney would die at nine forty-five. At that time I would be demonstrating this gadget at Hamish’s place, a mile and a half from Blue Jay cabin around half-past nine and ten. It was an unassailable alibi.
    That was Wednesday.
    On Thursday night I had the trickiest and most dangerous part of the plan to do.
    A little after half-past nine, with my tool box and the time-switch clock, I started off on foot for