Shock Treatment (8 page)

It had often happened before. From time to time there appeared in the newspapers an account of some handyman who had tried to repair his set with the current on and had killed himself.

As I reached for the telephone, I suddenly realized that there was nothing wrong with the set! That discovery turned me cold. I had very nearly made a fatal slip. There had to be something wrong with it, otherwise why should Delaney have tried to repair it? If there was an investigation, the police would immediately become suspicious if they turned the set on and found it working properly.

I went over to the set, took from my toolbox an insulated screwdriver, turned the set on and then put the blade of the screwdriver across two terminals. There was an immediate flash from the set and a bang, blowing half the valves, and a wisp of smoke came from the set.

I disconnected the set, then I ripped loose the lead to the sound control and left it dangling. That fixed it. I went back to the telephone and called Sheriff Jefferson.

He answered at once.

“Sheriff.?” I didn’t have to try to make my voice sound urgent. By now the shock was hitting me and I felt and sounded bad. “This is Terry Regan. Will you come out to Blue Jay cabin right away? There’s been an accident. Delaney’s dead.”

“Okay, son.” His voice was quiet and calm. “I’ll be right out.”

“Bring Doc with you.”

“He’s here. We’re coming,” and he hung up.

It would take him in his old Ford the best part of half an hour to get out here.

I had a moment’s breathing space and my mind went to Gilda, waiting for me in my cabin.

It was then I realized that she now had no alibi! If anything went wrong, and the police investigated, suspecting murder, they would want to know where she had been between the time he died and the time she returned to the cabin. They would immediately suspect there was something between us, and that would give them the motive for the murder. I sat before the telephone, my heart thumping while my brain seized up with panic. She had been waiting at my cabin now for an hour and a half.

I would have to manufacture an alibi for her, but first I had to get her down to Glyn Camp.

I called my number. After a moment’s delay, Gilda answered.

“Gilda?” I said. “Will you please do exactly what I tell you without asking questions? This is urgent and important.”

“Why, yes, of course, Terry. Is there something wrong?”

“I want you to go down to Glyn Camp right away. Don’t go by the main road; go by the lake road.” I didn’t want her to run into Jefferson on his way up. “When you get there, do your weekend shopping as usual. Don’t start back until half-past twelve. Will you do that?”

“But why, Terry? I’ve no shopping to do. I’m going to Los Angeles this afternoon . . .”

“Gilda! Please! This is important! Something has happened! You’ve got to do what I tell you and don’t ask questions! Please do exactly what I’ve said! I’ll meet you at a quarter to one at the cross roads on your way back and I’ll explain everything. Have you your baggage with you?”

“Yes.”

“Keep it out of sight. Put it in the trunk of the car. No one must know you have left him. Will you go at once to Glyn Camp ? I’ll explain everything when we meet.”

“Well, all right, but I don’t understand.”

“I’ll see you at the cross roads at a quarter to one,” I said and hung up.

I went out onto the verandah and sat down. My nerves were crawling. I sat there for twenty minutes, smoking, and trying to keep my mind empty.

It was a relief when I heard the Sheriff’s car come roaring up the road. Two minutes later, the battered old car pulled up outside the cabin.

Jefferson and Doc Mallard came up the steps.

“Is Mrs Delaney here?” Jefferson asked.

“No. She must be shopping in Glyn Camp. It’s her day for shopping.”

“Is he dead?”

“I think so. Doc’ll be able to tell us.” This was deliberate. I had now to make Doc Mallard the leading actor in this scene. “He’s in here, Doc.”

Doc Mallard looked like an old, weary stork as he came up the steps. He was wearing a gallon hat at the back of his head, a black gambler’s frock coat and black trousers, the ends of which were thrust into a pair of Mexican riding boots.

“Hello, son,” he said to me. “So we have a body on our hands, huh? Well, it isn’t the first, and I dare say it won’t be the last. Where is he?”

“In here, Doc,” I said and led the way into the lounge. “I found him just as he is. It looks as if he was poking around in the set, touched something and got the full shock through him. He must have been pretty careless. The screwdriver he was using wasn’t insulated. I found it by his hand.”

Doc scratched the side of his jaw and eyed Delaney’s body.

“I’ve always said these TV sets are dangerous.” He looked over at Jefferson. “Didn’t I say that, Fred? Weren’t those my very words?”

“You sure did, Doc,” Jefferson said, leaning against the door post, his thumbs hooked in his gunbelt. “Is he dead?”

Doc bent and touched Delaney’s neck. As he bent, his old knees creaked.

“Sure is: as dead as a mackerel.”

“Can you say how long?”

“Three hours, could be longer, not less. Rigor’s well advanced. Here, son, give me a hand with him. Help me turn him over.”

I felt pretty bad as I turned the rigid body over on its back. Delaney’s face was blue-tinged and congested. His lips were off his teeth in a snarl of pain. He looked terrible.

“He’s been electrocuted,” Doc said. “No doubt about it. See that blue tinge: a sure sign.”

“Any sign of burning?” Jefferson asked.

Doc examined Delaney’s hands, then shook his head.

“Nope, but that doesn’t mean anything. His chair’s metal. He would have received an evenly distributed shock. Well . . .” He straightened and pushed his hat further to the back of his head. “You won’t be wanting a p.m., Fred?” There was a slightly anxious note in his voice. I had been counting on this. I had been sure Doc wouldn’t feel capable of holding a post mortem.

“If you’re satisfied, Doc, I am,” Jefferson said, pulling at his moustache. “No point in cutting the poor fellow about.”

He walked over to the TV set and stared at it.

“How could it have happened, son?” he asked me.

“If you poke about in a TV set with a steel screwdriver,” I said, “you’re asking for trouble. You have only to touch something that’s alive and you get it.”

“Was there something wrong with the set?”

“There’s a loose lead here,” and I pointed to the lead I had ripped loose.

Both Jefferson and Doc peered short-sightedly into the set.

“How did it get loose, do you reckon?” Jefferson asked.

“It was a bad soldering job. Delaney was in a hurry to get the set and I had to work under pressure. He wanted to see the Dempsey fight film. I guess when he turned the set on, he found he couldn’t get the sound. He probably thought he could fix it himself without bothering me, and this is the result.”

“He didn’t call you, son?”

“No.”

“What made you come out here then?”

There was no suspicion in the old man’s eyes. It was just a routine question.

“I hadn’t been near to check the set since I delivered it,” I said. T happened to be at Mr Hamish’s place, and as I was passing, I thought I’d look in to see if he was satisfied, and I found him.”

“Must have given you a shock.” Jefferson moved over to look at Delaney. “I’ll call the ambulance. We’d better get him out of here before Mrs Delaney gets back.”

“If you don’t want me, Sheriff, suppose I go down to Glyn Camp and break the news to her?” I said.

“You do that, son. It’s going to be a bad shock for her. Keep her away until the ambulance has gone. Tell her I’ll be here for a while. I’d like to have a word with her. Tell her there’s nothing to worry about, but there’ll have to be an inquest.”

I left them: two slightly fuddled old men, happy enough to accept the setup as I had arranged it.

This lack of suspicion, this readiness to accept everything at its face value was what I had been relying on.

As I drove down to meet Gilda, I felt confident that, unless I had made a bad slip somewhere which would be discovered later, and I felt sure I hadn’t, I was going to get away with murder.

III

I found Gilda waiting for me at the cross roads. She was sitting in the Buick, which she had pulled off the road onto the grass verge. Her face was pale and tense as I stopped the truck and went over to her.

“What is it, Terry?” she asked breathlessly. “What has happened?”

“This is going to be a shock, Gilda . . .” Her hands went to her breasts and her eyes turned dark with fear.

“Something’s happened to Jack?”

“He’s had an accident, Gilda.” I put my hand over hers. “He’s dead.”

She shut her eyes and her face went white. She remained like that for a second or so, then opening her eyes, she said unsteadily, “Accident? What do you mean? How — how did he i die?”

“He electrocuted himself. Sheriff Jefferson and Doc Mallard i are up there now.”

“Electrocuted himself?” Her face showed bewilderment. “I don’t understand.”

The distant sound of an approaching siren made both of us stiffen. We looked down the road. The Glyn Camp ambulance went storming past us.

I walked around the Buick, opened the off-side door and got in beside her.

“It was the TV set, A wire connecting the sound control came adrift,” I said. “He wanted to see the Dempsey fight film.

“When he found he couldn’t get the commentary, he must have tried to fix it himself. He touched something and got the full shock through him. In his metal chair, he didn’t stand a chance.”

She suddenly began to cry, hiding her face.

I sat away from her and waited.

After a few minutes she recovered herself.

“I still don’t understand,” she said, her voice shaking. “How do you know all this? You weren’t there when it happened?”

“No, of course not. I was at Mr Hamish’s place. On my way down I had to pass your cabin. I went in to see if the set was working all right and I found him.”

She touched her eyes with her handkerchief as she stared at me.

“You went there when you knew I had left him and I was waiting for you?”

I had trouble in meeting her direct stare.

“I was passing,” I said rather feebly. “After all I had sold him the set, Gilda, and he hadn’t paid for it. It cost me a lot of money . . .”

“You walked in and found him?”

“Yes. Now listen, Gilda, they mustn’t know you planned to leave him. That’s why I told you to go into Glyn Camp and do your shopping as usual. You did go?”

“Yes, but, Terry, I don’t understand this. Are you quite sure he was electrocuted? Did Doctor Mallard say so?”

“Yes. There’s no doubt about it.”

“Then why shouldn’t they know I left him?”

“There’ll be an inquest. The Coroner will ask questions. If he found out you had left him, there would be gossip. This could be tricky, Gilda. You don’t know what a snake-pit of gossip this place is. They might even begin to think he killed himself. If it was known you were at my place, waiting for me, they’d link us together, and you can imagine what they would say.”

“But you said it was an accident.”

“It was an accident, but they might think he had committed suicide.”

“I think he killed himself,” she said. “Last night we had a horrible scene, and again this morning. I told him I was going to leave him. This could be my fault. I may have driven him to it. If you had seen his face . . .”

“Get that idea out of your mind!” I said sharply. “It was an accident! No one would think of killing himself by fooling with a TV set.”

“But what exactly did he do?”

“He tried to get the set working again. He must have touched something and got the full shock through him. He was using a steel screwdriver and he was in that steel chair . . .”

“Oh, no! I’m sure it couldn’t have happened like that!” She was so emphatic she began to frighten me. “He would have to take the back off the set to touch anything dangerous, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes, and that’s what he did. He had taken the back off. There was this screwdriver by his hand.”

She frowned at me.

“I just can’t understand it. He wasn’t clever with his hands. He never has been. He never touched anything that needed repairing. He would never have thought for one moment of trying to repair the set.”

This was something I hadn’t bargained for. If she came out with this information at the inquest, the Coroner might get suspicious.

“He wanted to see this film, Gilda. He was mad keen to see it.”

“How do you know he wanted to see the film?” she asked sharply.

For a moment my mind floundered, then I said, “A couple of days ago, he called me. He wanted to know how to adjust the set. I told him about the film. He said he wouldn’t miss seeing it for anything. You know how fanatical he was about a fight. I’m sure when he found he couldn’t get the commentary, he took the back off the set and, in trying to fix the lead, he killed himself.”

There was a look of complete unbelief in her eyes as she shrugged her shoulders wearily and asked, “Did you say there was a screwdriver by his side?”

I began to sweat. I remembered with a real stab of fear that the toolbox had been on the top shelf in the storeroom, and this shelf had been a good seven feet from the ground. I had had to stretch up to get it. I realized now that Delaney, unable to move from his chair, could never have got near it. This was a slip, and a bad one.

“That’s right,” I said.

“But he didn’t know where the toolbox was kept. He never used tools.”

By now I had managed to get my second wind and I had fought down my rising panic.

“Gilda, don’t try to make a mystery of this! The set broke down. He wanted to repair it. He hunted for the toolbox and he found it. He even hooked the box down with a stick. I found the box on the floor. You’re trying to make this thing complicated. It happens every month. You have only to read the papers to see that people kill themselves because they are stupid enough to fool with the works of a radio or TV set. Anyone without knowledge of how a set works can kill himself . . .” My voice trailed off when I saw she wasn’t listening, and then I really began to get scared. What was she thinking? Did she suspect I had killed him?