Frances stood for a long moment staring at Conrad, her fists clenched, and as he watched her, she seemed to grow older before his eyes, and her face hardened until he scarcely recognized her.
“I’m going to tell you something,” she said in a quiet fierce voice. “Maurer must pay for this. I don’t care now what happens to me. I’ll give the evidence you want. I did see Maurer at Dead End! He did murder June Arnot! I saw him do it!”
IV
Charles Forest and Captain McCann got out of the police car and ran up the steps to the verandah of the hunting lodge, their shoulders hunched against the rain.
Conrad came out to meet them.
The three men walked into the big lounge, and as McCann pulled off his raincoat, Conrad said. “She’s going to talk! We’ve got Maurer where we want him at last! She actually saw him do the job!”
McCann paused, his arm half in and half out of his coat, and he glared at Conrad. His fleshy face turned purple and his small eyes gleamed redly.
“Then why the hell hasn’t she talked before?” he snarled.
“It’s quite a story,” Conrad returned. “Before we go up, you’d better hear it.”
McCann threw his coat into an armchair and walked with a slow heavy tread to the fireplace. If this was true, he thought, then Maurer was finished. McCann didn’t kid himself that Maurer would go to the chair without blowing the lid off the organization, nor would he keep quiet about the money he had paid McCann in the past.