But first he had to warn Frances, and before he could do that he had to get her away from the other two. If he told her when they were there, Buster would probably call a cop and stop him fixing Moe.
Everything depended on Moe’s death, Pete told himself. He looked towards the glittering sea. Frances’s blue bathing cap was bobbing towards him: she was coming in.
He took a grip on his fluttering nerves and waited for her.
III
The black-and-white checkered police car swung into Lennox Avenue, slowed to a crawl while Conrad leaned out of the window to catch a glimpse of the numbers of the houses.
“Across the road, about ten yards up,” he said to Bardin, who was driving.
Bardin pulled across the road and stopped the car outside the four-storey house. Both men got out of the car and stood for a moment surveying the house.
Conrad’s heart was beating unevenly. He was excited. When McCann had telephoned through to his office to tell him the girl, Frances Coleman, had been located at 35, Lennox Avenue, he could scarcely wait for Bardin to collect him in the police car.
“You’ll be soon out of your misery,” Bardin said, grinning. “What’s the betting she didn’t see anyone?”
“Come on, let’s ask her,” Conrad said, pushing open the garden gate. As he walked up the path to the front door, he spotted a movement in the ground floor window and caught sight of the shadow of a man, lurking behind the curtains. The shadow hurriedly ducked back out of sight as Conrad turned his head to look at the window.