Free Believed Violent by James Hadley Chase

accommodation for two hundred patients, and at this period there were one hundred and twenty-two patients: all people of importance, some young, most of them old, at least fifty of them highly dangerous but all with wealth.
    Apart from Dr. Max Hertz who owned the asylum, two resident doctors and a Matron, the staff consisted of ten male nurses. Each one of these male nurses had been secretly investigated by Lindsey’s Detective Agency. From their reports, Lindsey had finally decided that Fred Lewis was the most likely of them all to work on.
    Lindsey discovered from the report that Lewis was young, besotted by a dance hostess, urgently in need of money and dissatisfied with his work.
    Lindsey knew the approach would have to be made through this dance hostess. He was sure she could handle Lewis and persuade him to co-operate so long as she was satisfied her reward would be impressive. That was why he had given Keegan $10,000 in cash with which to dazzle her. With that incentive, a woman of her record could achieve a miracle.
    Fred Lewis, a small, slimly built young man in his late twenties with a crewcut of black hair, a sun-tanned, rather chubby face, signed off duty at eight p.m.
    Dr. Max Hertz, a big, balding man with a genial fleshy face, leaned back in his desk chair to ask, “All under control up there, Fred? No trouble?”
    “No, sir. Mr. Massingham is a little restless. I told Jack. He is giving him a sedative. The rest of them are behaving beautifully.” He signed off, replacing the pen in Hertz’s pen rack.
    “Then see you tomorrow,” Hertz said.
    “Yes, sir. Good night, sir.”
    Lewis left the mansion and walked around to the car park. He got into his shabby, second-hand Buick. He drove down to the gates. The guard, Harry Edwards, came out of the lodge to open up. Edwards was a rotund man in his late sixties. He had been gate-man now for the past thirty years.
    “Hi, Fred,” he said, unlocking the gates. “How’s that little doll you’re chasing?”
    Fred forced a grin.
    “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
    “Don’t do anything I shouldn’t hear about,” Edwards said. He envied Lewis his youth. “But if you do, confide in me.”
    Again Fred forced a grin, then drove out on to the beach road that curved around the Bay and led to the centre of the City.
    His grin quickly faded once he was out of sight of Edwards. He now regretted boasting to Edwards about his association with Drena French. But he had had to confide in someone. At least, Edwards didn’t kid him as Lewis knew the rest of the staff would have kidded him. He had known Drena French now for three months. One night, suddenly sick of his tiny airless apartment, he had wandered into the Go-Go Club. It had been an off-night. No warships were in the bay and Drena was glad to have a dancing partner. She found this rather serious, decent young man an enormous change from her usual brash, pawing nautical clients. He held her as if she was a precious piece of china. She could see the look of bewildered worship growing in his eyes as the evening moved along. This was something that hadn’t ever happened to her. Slightly intrigued, she had impulsively invited him back to her room when the Club shut down. She imagined it would be an experience to have such a man in her bed. But Fred Lewis didn’t attempt to make love to her. He sat on the edge of a chair and talked and adored her with his eyes. He drank one small whisky, then around three o’clock in the morning, he got to his feet and said it was time for him to go home. Drena very nearly spoilt the atmosphere he had created by inviting him to share her bed. Something warned her not to do so, and she saw him to the door. He kissed her hand and this completely threw her. No man had ever done that before. Usually they slapped her behind and tried to get their hands down the front of her bra.
    From then on, Lewis was continually at the Club during his nights off: dancing with her, spending more money