James Chase - Shock Treatment

“Me too.”

“I don’t think it’s murder,” Jefferson went on. “I think it was suicide. She got tired of living with him and she left him. He was down to his last buck, and with her leaving him, it was too much for him. Somehow he managed to get the back off the TV set. Don’t ask me how, but a desperate man can do things that most people think impossible.”

“Have they talked to her yet?” I asked.

“They can’t find her. She’s vanished.”

I stiffened, slopping my drink.

“Vanished? Doesn’t Macklin know where she is?”

“No. He had a letter from her saying she was moving from the room she rented and was looking for somewhere else to stay. When she found something, she would let him know. That was three days ago. He hasn’t heard from her, and Boos is hinting she’s got in a panic and bolted.”

“Can’t they trace her by her car?”

“She’s sold it.”

The sound of heavy steps coming along the passage made both of us look sharply towards the door which jerked open.

Lieutenant Boos stood in the doorway. There was a smirking look of truimph in his close-set eyes. He came in, kicking the door shut.

“How do you like it?” he said, addressing Jefferson. “The guy wasn’t electrocuted at all!”

I sat forward, staring at him, scarcely believing I had heard aright.

Jefferson too was staring.

“If he wasn’t electrocuted, then how did he die?” he asked, a croak in his voice.

“He was poisoned,” Boos said. He put two big, red hairy hands on Jefferson’s desk, and leaning forward, went on, “He was murdered! Someone fed him enough cyanide to wipe out half this goddam town!”

The big moon floated serenely in the night sky, casting a brilliant white light over my cabin and garden.

I sat on the verandah, smoking. The time was a little after ten o’clock.

I was still stunned by the news Boos had shot into our laps. I could scarcely believe that Delaney had died of poisoning and that I hadn’t after all killed him. I was beginning now to savour the realization with an overwhelming feeling of relief that by a trick of fate I was not after all a murderer. The knowledge that I could now no longer be arrested, tried, found guilty and put in the gas chamber gave me a buoyant feeling of freedom.

But if it was good news for me, it was serious news for Gilda.

Not for one moment did I believe she had poisoned Delaney. I was sure Jefferson was right when he had said the thought of losing her and knowing he had no money left had been too much for Delaney. He had taken the easy way out — he had killed himself.

If I hadn’t planned to kill him, if I hadn’t gone to the cabin and set the stage so that it would look as if he had been electrocuted, Gilda would not be in the perilous position she was in now.

To save her, I might still have to tell the police what I had done. Attempted murder was a serious charge. I could get a twenty-year sentence. The thought turned me cold.

The sound of a car coming up the road brought me to my feet. I went to the verandah rail and watched Jefferson’s old Ford bump up my drive-in.

He came slowly up the verandah steps.

“Come in and have a drink,” I said, wondering what he was doing up here.

He sat down while I made a couple of highballs. I looked at him. He was pulling,at his moustache, a brooding expression in his eyes. I saw, with surprise, he wasn’t wearing his sheriff’s star. This was the first time since I had known him that he hadn’t worn it.

He saw me staring and he smiled ruefully.

“I turned it in this afternoon. It’s always better to walk out than to be kicked out.”

“You mean you have resigned office?”

“That’s it. It’s time I did. I’ve got beyond the job.” He took the highball. -*Truth to tell, now I’ve taken the plunge, it’s a relief. I can sit on the fence and watch the other fella do the work. I’m sorry it finished this way. It’s my own fault. I should have resigned years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I said and I meant it.

“I didn’t come up here to talk about myself. Have you heard about Mrs Delaney?”

A cold creepy sensation crawled over me.

“No, I haven’t heard a thing.”

“They arrested her this afternoon in Los Angeles.”

I sat down abruptly.

“For God’s sake!”

“She’s being charged with the murder of her husband and attempted fraud. Maddox is pressing the charge: she’s in a bad jam, Regan.”

I scarcely noticed that he called me by my surname and not my Christian name as he usually did.

“But she didn’t kill him!”

“I don’t think she did, but Boos has got quite a case against her. She admits buying the cyanide.”

That gave me a hell of a shock.

“She bought it?”

“Yes. She says she went to the pharmacist in Glyn Camp. There was a wasps’ nest in the roof of the cabin, and she asked the pharmacist if he could give her something to kill the wasps. He gave her the cyanide. She signed the poison book. When she got home, she told Delaney she had bought the stuff. She put the poison in the desk drawer, meaning to fix the nest the next day, but she was busy and forgot about it. Boos has checked. The wasps’ nest is there all right, but that doesn’t alter the fact that she bought the poison. She’s admitted quarrelling with Delaney the night before his death, and that he hit her. She admits making up her mind to leave him. She told Boos she had told Delaney that she intended to leave him. When she did leave him, he was very disturbed. On her way down to Glyn Camp, she had a flat. She took some time to fix it, then she went on to Glyn Camp. While she was fixing the flat, she had a change of mind about leaving her husband. By the time she got down to Glyn Camp, she had decided she couldn’t leave a cripple to fend for himself, so she came back. On the way back, she met you with the news he was dead. That’s her story. I was there when she told it, and I believe it, but Boos doesn’t.”

I drew in a long slow breath.

“Why doesn’t he?”

“His theory is that when she found out Delaney hadn’t any money left, she decided to kill him and grab the five thousand from the insurance. Maddox thinks so too. She denies knowing that Delaney was insured until after the funeral, when you gave her the letters you had been carrying around with you. Maddox says she is lying. He claims soon after her marriage with Delaney, she tried to persuade him to insure his life...”

“I know. I’ve heard that one,” I broke in. “No jury would believe that once they looked at her.”

“Maybe you’re right, but there’s this TV setup. Both Maddox and Boos swear Delaney couldn’t have taken the back off the set. I think he might have if he had been desperate enough, but that will be for the jury to decide. But the one damning thing even I can’t explain away is if Delaney took poison, how did he get rid of the glass containing the poison?”

I stiffened to attention, staring at him.

“What do you mean?”

“The pharmacist sold the cyanide to Mrs Delaney in block form. To have used it as a poison it would have had to have been dissolved in water or whisky. Cyanide kills instantly. As soon as it got into his mouth, he’d die. There was no glass found beside him where you’d expect to find one. That must rule out suicide. It makes things pretty difficult for Mrs Delaney. Boos thinks she doped his whisky with the poison, then not thinking she removed the glass when he was dead. Boos says that is the kind of slip most killers could make.”

It was then, and only then, that I remembered the glass lying by Delaney’s side when I had found him.

I had been afraid that the Coroner might have become suspicious if he had thought Delaney had been drinking and I had washed out the glass and put it away.