James Chase - Shock Treatment

I sat there, listening, keeping my face expressionless.

“This claim,” Harmas went on. “Maddox thinks it’s a wrong “un. I have orders to check on it.”

“What’s wrong with the claim then?” I asked.

“The way Maddox figures it is this: since we started to sell coverage for TV sets we have issued some twenty thousand policies. Our records show that during that period we have never had to pay out on the personal accident clause.” He grinned. “Between you and me, the boys who work out the risks on this particular coverage have put that clause in about personal risk to catch a sale. We don’t reckon to pay out on it.”

“It looks as if you’ll have to pay out on this one,” I said.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“You could be right. All the same, I can see it from Maddox’s angle. Suddenly we have a twenty-thousand to one chance dropped in our laps. That would be all right if the other circumstances are normal, but they aren’t. The policy is only five days old, and the guy who took it out is buried before the policy is even delivered, and he’s buried without a post mortem. Well, that would make even a mad insurance agent point like a gun dog. What it did to Maddox was nobody’s business.”

“Putting it that way, it doesn’t sound all that on the level,” I said.

Harmas laughed.

“According to Maddox that would be one of the world’s great understatements. You should have heard him on the telephone. Boy! Did he burn up that wire!” He got to his feet and went over to the set. He opened the cabinet and peered at the tape recorder and the turntable.

“Some set. You certainly know your business, Mr Regan.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You were the one who found the body?”

“That’s right.”

“Yeah. I read the coroner’s report. The sound control lead came adrift and Delaney tried to fix it and touched two terminals and that was that Check?”

“That’s how it happened.”

He squatted down on his heels and peered into the works of the set.

“Which terminals did he touch?”

I joined him and showed him the terminals.

“He worked with an uninsulated screwdriver?”

“Yes. I found it by his side.”

Harmas straightened up.

“He was paralysed from the waist down? That’s right, isn’t it? He went around in that wheel chair?” and he jerked his thumb to where the wheel chair stood.

“Yes.”

“Pretty rough on his wife. From what I hear, she’s quite a dish.” He made curves with his hands. “All the right things in — the right places.”

I didn’t say anything, but I was very alert now.

“You’ve met her?” he went on.

“Yes.”

“Would you say they got on well together?”

“What’s that to do with this setup?” I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice. “I have a whale of a lot to do. Mrs Delaney asked me to show you the set. Well, you’ve seen it. I’ve got to get going.”

He went back to the lounging chair and sank into it.

“Take it easy,” he said. “I don’t expect you to waste your time listening to my hot air for nothing. You built this set and you found the guy and you know the background of the district. What do you say if we pay you ten bucks a day as a retainer for technical advice?”

I hesitated, but I realized if I refused, he might get someone else. Whereas if I agreed, I’d be right in on the investigation and I could watch which way it was going.

“Fair enough,” I said. “Ten bucks a day then.”

He took out two tens, screwed them into a ball and flicked them into my lap.

“Would you know if they got on well together?” he repeated.

“As far as I know they got on all right,” I said, “but I didn’t see much of them together.”

I wondered if he would ever find out that I had taken Gilda to the Italian restaurant. With any luck, he wouldn’t dig that deep.

He stared at the TV set for a long moment, frowning, then he said, “Do me a favour. Put the back on the set.”

“Why, sure.”

I went over to the set and put the back on, fixing the screws and tightening them.

Harmas watched me, frowning.

“Would you sit in the wheelchair?”

I stiffened, my heart beginning to thump.

“What’s the idea?”

“I’m a lazy cuss,” he said, grinning. “When I can pay a guy to do my work for me, I always reckon it’s money worth spent.”

I went over to the wheelchair and sat in it. It gave me a creepy feeling, knowing Delaney had spent four years of his life in this chair.

“Will you wheel yourself up to the set and take the back off, remaining in the chair the way Delaney would have had to remain in it?”

It wasn’t until I had taken out the two top fixing screws that the nickel dropped.

Seated as I was, I suddenly saw it was impossible for me to reach the two bottom screws!

As I couldn’t reach these two screws, it followed that it would have been impossible for Delaney to have removed the back of the set.

If he hadn’t removed the back of the set, he could not have electrocuted himself!

Here was my fatal slip!

My perfect murder plan had blown up in my face!

For a long, agonizing moment, I sat motionless, staring at the bottom screws. I knew Harmas was watching me. I realized he had been smart enough to have seen the screws were out of reach of anyone sitting in that big wheeled chair.

I had to do something.

I edged myself forward, and, by getting my feet off the footrest of the chair, onto the floor, I could just reach the screws by bending right forward. As I began to undo them, Harmas said sharply, “Hold it!”

The note in his voice sent a chill crawling up my spine, but I had myself under control. I looked over my shoulder at him.

He was on his feet and he was staring at the set.

“This is interesting,” he said. “Delaney was paralysed from the waist down. He couldn’t have reached those two screws.”

“Why not?”

“Look at the way you’re sitting. A paralysed man couldn’t sit like that.”

“He must have done,” I said, my voice was husky.

I was cursing myself for being such a fool as to put the lower two fixing screws in such a position, and not realizing that Delaney couldn’t have reached them. When I had taken the back off the set I had squatted down in front of the set: the only practical way of getting at the screws.

“Well, if he did take them out, he must have had arms like a gorilla,” Harmas said. “Here, let me have a try. Let me sit in the chair.”

I got up and stood back and watched him sit in the chair and try to reach the screws. It was only when he was right on the edge of the chair, his feet off the foot rest and leaning well forward that he could get at them.

He sat in the chair, brooding for some moments, then he said, “If I remember rightly, Delaney got the screwdriver from a storeroom somewhere. Do you know where the storeroom is?”

“Down the passage: first door on the right.”

“Let’s take a look.”

Remaining in the chair, he propelled himself out of the lounge, down the passage to the storeroom door. He opened the door and manoeuvred himself and the chair inside.

I stood watching him, thinking what a stupid fool I had been to imagine I had dreamed up the perfect murder plan!

“Where’s the toolbox kept?”

“Up on the top shelf. Delaney hooked it down with a walking stick. I found the tools on the floor.”

“Where’s the stick?”

I gave him the stick with its hooked handle.

He reached up, got the hook over the side of the toolbox and tipped the box off the shelf. It came down with a clatter, spilling the tools all over the floor.