Lucille Balu came across the sand and entered the Plaza enclosure. She sat down at one of the tables within ten feet of where Jay was sitting.
A small, compact, powerfully-built man with wiry black hair came over to her, carrying a wrap and a beach bag which he put on the table.
“Nice work,” he said. “Well, that’ll do for to-day. I’m going to catch a bit of this movie. Do you want to come?”
The girl shook her head.
“I’ll stay here for a while.”
“All right, but don’t hide yourself: let the people see you. I’ll meet you in the Plaza bar at six.”
Jay listened to this conversation and he watched the little man stroll away. Turning his head and behind the dark screen of his sun-glasses, he watched the girl as she opened the beach bag to take out a powder compact. She is very attractive, he thought.
“Why not now?” the voice in his mind asked. “This thing has been with you for a long time. Why don’t you do it? She will make a perfect subject. You could take her up to the hotel suite. You have two hours before they will be back. You will have plenty of time to arrange things.”
Jay glanced around the enclosure. There were only a dozen or so people sitting at the tables. At this hour in the afternoon most people were in the cinema or sight-seeing. No one was paying any attention to him or to the girl.
He decided he would do it and without giving himself a chance to change his mind, he shut his book and stood up. His heart was beating a little faster, but otherwise he felt surprisingly calm and relaxed.
The girl was touching up her lips, looking at herself in the mirror of the compact as Jay came up to her.
“It’s Mademoiselle Balu, isn’t it?” he said in his impeccable French.
The girl glanced up, stiffened a little and then immediately smiled.
“Yes. You are Monsieur Delaney.”
“Junior: it makes a lot of difference,” Jay said with his charming, boyish smile. “This is fortunate. My father was talking about you this morning. He wants to meet you.”
The expression of surprise and excitement that spread over the girl’s face amused him.
“Mr. Delaney wants to meet me? Why, how wonderful!” She cocked her head on one side and smiled at him. “You’re serious? You’re not joking?”
“Why, no. He said if I happened to run into you to bring you to meet him,” Jay said. “If you have nothing to do, why not come now?”
“Now?” The girl was becoming flustered and she stared at Jay, her eyes very wide and he thought how vulnerable she looked and that pleased him. “But where?”
“At the Plaza hotel, of course. He thinks you have a lot of talent.” Jay smiled. “I don’t often agree with my father, but this time, I think he is absolutely right.”
The flattery didn’t have the result he expected. The girl continued to stare at him.
She had a sudden wish that she could see beyond the two blue screens that hid his eyes. Somehow, even though his smile was charming, she felt a little uneasy about him.
But, she told herself, if his father wanted to see her, this expensive trip down to Cannes would be justified. Her agent Jean Thiry, the little man who had just left her, had insisted that she should go to Cannes.
“You never know,” he had said. “It’s a gamble of course, but then one of the big shots from Hollywood might spot you. Cannes is a shop window for a girl like you.”
Then she remembered seeing Floyd Delaney and his beautiful wife leave the Plaza about an hour ago and go over to the cinema.
“But Mr. Delaney is in the cinema now.”
Jay took this in his stride.
“My father doesn’t sit through many of these films He sneaks out the side exit. He’s back at the hotel now.” He looked at his gold Omega. “I know he is going out just after tour. Its half past three now, but if you have something else to do, perhaps some other time.”
“But I haven’t a thing to do,” the girl said, getting hastily to her feet. “I’d love to meet him.”
“You will want to change, won’t you?” Jay said. It amused him to see the panic that had jumped into her eyes He saw she was wondering what she should wear, how she could possibly change in half an hour and still look her best “Are you staying at the Plaza?”
She shook her head.
“The hotel next door. The Metropole.”
“You don’t have to be formal,” he said. “My father already knows how beautiful you are.”
She laughed nervously.
“Well, I’d better hurry if I have only half an hour,” she said and slipped on her beach wrap.
Jay watched her.
When she had been posing for the photographers she had been very self-possessed, but now, at the thought of meeting his father, she had lost her poise. She was pathetically eager and like any other young girl in a fluster.
“There’s just one thing,” he said and his intimate, boyish smile widened. “Perhaps you’d better not tell anyone that you are seeing my father. There’ll be time for that later. People here do gossip, don’t they? My father’s moods are very unpredictable. I think he has plans for you, but it would be as well not to count too much on him.”
She realized how damaging it would be to her career and her reputation if it got around that the great Floyd Delaney had given her a personal interview and then nothing had come of it. But suppose he made her an offer? She wished Jean hadn’t gone to the cinema. She would have liked to have had a word with him first.
“No, of course. I won’t say anything to anyone,” she said. “Suite 27? I must fly.”
“At four o’clock then.”
He watched her hurry up the steps on to the Croisette, then he lit another cigarette and sat down.
He had now to consider how he was to kill her. It would be done in the suite. Obviously there mustn’t be anything messy: no blood. He thought of the silk curtain cords that held back the drapes at the big windows of his father’s lounge. It shouldn’t be difficult to drop one of these cords over her head and tighten it around her throat before she could scream.
He flicked ash off his cigarette, again conscious that he was calm and that pleased him.
The excitement and the tension he needed would begin after he had killed her. The mere act of killing her was nothing — a means to an end. The excitement would begin when he had a dead body on his hands in a suite in the famous Plaza hotel. That would be the test of his ingenuity; a challenge to his power of inventiveness, when one slip would put him into the hands of the police.
He sat there, letting the sun beat down on his upturned, handsome young face, his mind deliberately blank, aware that his heart was now beating faster and his hands were a little damp.
At ten minutes to four o’clock, he got up and walked slowly up the steps to the Croisette.
The crowd staring at the starlets in their scanty swim-suits ignored him. Even if they had been told that he was the son of one of the most famous motion picture makers they wouldn’t have given him more than a glance.
A few of the film executives nodded to him as he crossed the road to the hotel and he nodded back with his customary politeness. He was sure these men, who had often been ruthlessly treated by his father, were thinking he was a nice kid who hadn’t been spoilt by his father’s millions and the thought amused him.
He collected the key to his father’s suite, acknowledging the nod and the smile from the clerk who handed him the key. He walked up the stairs to the second floor that was reserved for the important executives attending the festival. The long corridor was deserted as he had expected it to be deserted.
At this hour none of the executives would be in their suites. They would either be in the cinema or else on the terrace discussing their affairs.
He unlocked the door of suite 27 and walked in.
The suite consisted of a large lounge, a dining-room and three bedrooms. It had been completely redecorated for Floyd Delaney’s arrival.