Gideon Combats Influence by John Creasey

Author:John Creasey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2014-12-08T16:00:00+00:00

Reggie Cole was telling himself that he couldn’t wait for the next job; any tiling which earned him fifty pounds as easily as that was something to pray for. After the first few minutes, he had not really been scared; and he had not had one moment’s compunction, no feeling of shame or guilt. Any job which won him the kind of reward he wanted from Ethel was worth ten times as great a risk, anyhow. He was happier than he had ever been driving his delivery van, and he called – as usual – at the garage where he had first met Ethel, to get the tank filled up and the oil checked. He always hoped that he might see Ethel there again, and on one occasion he had.

Ethel wasn’t there this morning.

There seemed to be trouble of some kind. Two men were inside the littered office, talking to Bennett, the manager, a square-shouldered, stocky man whom he did not greatly like. A youth came up to serve Reggie, and he asked: “What’s on?”

“Cops,” the youth said laconically.

Reggie’s heart began to thump. “What’s it about?”

“They’re looking for a glove.”

“For a what?”

“A glove,” the boy repeated, “and Bennett told them they were wasting their time, but he didn’t like it when they said they was going to look. Funny, if you ask me.”

“Yeh,” Reggie agreed. “Five gallons and check the levels.” He went towards the door of the showroom, seeing the two men moving about the small office and Bennett watching them, scowling. He saw them pick up the wicker wastepaper basket and place it on the desk, then begin to remove all the oddments from it. Then he saw one of the men jerk his head up, and say: “Look.”

He was holding something that looked like a rag. Reggie got closer, and saw the man holding it up by one finger: it was a grey glove, obviously very dirty. Then he picked out another. The man handled them with great care, put them into a cellophane bag, and then sealed the bag while the other man said to Bennett: “Whose gloves are these?”

“How should I know?” Bennett demanded.

“It’s your office, isn’t it?”

“I get a lot of visitors.”

“Don’t be funny, Bennett. Whose gloves are they?”

“I tell you I dunno,” Bennett insisted. “I tell you I’ve never seen them before. They aren’t my gloves, I never wear them.” He spread out his stubby hands, with the flat, bitten nails, ingrained with black oil; revolting. “I’m not here all the time, either; they might have been put there at night, or when I was out on a job.”

The detective turned round, and called: “Here, you, boy.” The youngster who was holding the nozzle of the petrol hose in the van’s filler jumped so much that a little petrol spilled out.

“Careful!” shouted Bennett. He came over to the van and Reggie saw that he was looking at him intently, but could not understand why. “I’ll finish that,” Bennett said to the boy; “the gentlemen want to talk to you.

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