He only realised what it was when it was too late even to cry out.
PART FIVE
I
Rain ran in the gutters and dripped from the trees that lined the broad Roosevelt Boulevard. The street lamps made wet pools on the glistening sidewalk. An occasional car swished past, its headlamps lighting up the driving rain.
Adam Gillis stood under a tree, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his shabby mackintosh, his soggy felt hat pulled down over his eyes.
He didn’t appear to notice the heavy rain or the fact that he was soaked to the skin. He was concentrating on Kile’s house, a big, double-fronted mansion, its lower windows ablaze with light.
They won’t be much longer, he told himself. Nothing like a policeman for getting some fast action. A little too fast, if anything, he thought, as he remembered he had only just left the pay booth and had taken cover in a dark doorway before a couple of prowl boys had arrived. Lieutenant Olin certainly knew his business. He had tried to keep him talking while he had sent his men to pick him up.
When the prowl car had gone, Gillis had taken a taxi to Roosevelt Boulevard hoping to be there in time to see the result of his anonymous call to Olin.
He had had to wait longer than he expected. He wasn’t to know Olin had had difficulty in finding a judge to sign the necessary search warrant at that time of night.
Gillis had twenty minutes to wait in the rain before he saw the red light of a police car coming swiftly up the boulevard.