Free 1963 - One Bright Summer Morning by James Hadley Chase Page B

cabin. In the cabin would be the Vietnamese servant. He hesitated for a long moment whether to tackle the servant first or go to the house. He decided finally to go to the house. Moving like a long, black shadow, he silently circled the house. He quickly found the lead-in wires of the telephone. These he cut and rejoined with thin black string Moe had provided him with.
    To the left of the house were french windows, leading to the gunroom. The lock on the door gave him little trouble and he moved silently into the big room. He had never before broken into a house and he was nervous. He stood in the darkness, moving the beam of a powerful flashlight around and listening. The beam came to rest on the gun rack.
    He lifted the guns to the floor, then acting on Moe's instructions, he searched the drawers of the desk. He found the .38 automatic which he slid into his hip pocket. Then gathering up the guns, he walked out into the moonlight. When he was several hundred yards from the house he buried the guns in a sand dune.
    All this took time. When he returned to the ranch house, it was a little after two o'clock. He closed the french windows and with the aid of a paper-thin knife, he coaxed the catch to drop back into place.
    He then walked quickly over to the garage. The door was unlocked. He swung it up, entered and lowered the door back in place. He turned on the electric light. Working quickly, he removed the sparking plugs from both cars. These he rolled up in his handkerchief. He carried them to the place where he had buried the guns and buried them too.
    He was less nervous now. Everything was working out the way Moe had said it would. The dog was gone, the guns buried, the cars immobilized and the telephone fixed. He now had to take care of the Vietnamese servant.
    From a long narrow pocket that ran the length of his left trouser leg, he drew out a bicycle chain. This was Riff's favourite weapon in a fight. Carefully he wound the chain like a bandage around his right fist. He flexed his fingers, making sure he hadn't the chain on too tightly, then satisfied, he headed for the staff cabin.
    Di-Long was a shrimp of a man: fine boned, thin and nervy. A few minutes after two o'clock, he had woken out of an uneasy sleep. Usually, he slept through the night and to come awake so suddenly startled him. He lay for some moments in the dark, wondering what could have woken him, then he turned on the bedside light and got out of bed. He found he was thirsty and he went into the kitchen.
    He took a bottle of Coke from the refrigerator and snapped off the cap. With the bottle in his hand, he went to the cabin door, turned the key and pulled the door open. He moved out into the warm moonlight, looking across at the ranch house. As he stood there, Riff came silently around the side of the cabin.
    The two men paused and looked at each other. The moonlight fell fully on Di-Long and Riff saw him clearly, whereas he was in the shadows and Di-Long only saw a towering black shadow that paralysed him with terror.
    The bottle of Coke slipped from his fingers and dropped silently into the sand. The spilt Coke made a black puddle as Riff, recovering first, his nerves tightening to vicious tension, moved forward. He saw Di-Long open his mouth. He knew that in a second the silent night air would be split by Di-Long's scream for help. His right fist, bound in its chain, swept up with the force of panic and with the speed of a striking snake.
    Riff felt his fist crunch against the side of Di-Long's face. He felt the shock run up his arm. The Vietnamese catapulted back into the cabin and thudded to the floor. Only his thin ankles and small feet in their straw sandals remained in the pool of moonlight.
    I shouldn't have hit him so hard, Riff thought, feeling a chill crawl up his spine. He knew he had hit the little man a terrible blow and he had a sickening idea that a man of that size couldn't recover from such a blow.
    He looked over at the ranch house,