She suited herself by keeping quiet. I gave it up. I was afraid of her, afraid she would do something even crazier than her silence if I pressed her further. I went out of the flat not sure that she had understood a single word I had said.

At the corner I told Dick Foley:

“There’s a girl in there, Helen Albury, eighteen, five six, skinny, not more than a hundred, if that, eyes close together, brown, yellow skin, brown short hair, straight, got on a gray suit now. Tail her. If she cuts up on you throw her in the can. Be careful⁠—she’s crazy as a bedbug.”

I set out for Peak Murry’s dump, to locate Reno and see what he wanted. Half a block from my destination I stepped into an office building doorway to look the situation over.