Karen’s heart filled with fear. She knew exactly what must be out of place in that room; Stolz’s overcoat was lying on the bed. Stolz kept it folded on top of the money so that in first opening the wardrobe you didn’t see the heap of bills. When she had gone in to stare in fascination at the treasure she’d put the coat on the bed, and when Mrs. Havermann had called her she’d forgotten to replace it.

“Perhaps Mr. Stolz changed things around,” she managed to get out.

“It’s not the furniture.” Mrs. Havermann turned back into the hall. “I wonder . . . could he have laid it out for the cleaners and I not noticed?”

Karen waited. Concerning Stolz, Mrs. Havermann was closemouthed, inclined to sentimental secrecy; Karen decided that she would not be told all about the coat. “Didn’t he send suits out when he was here?”

“No, that was time before last.” Mrs. Havermann nodded, as if deciding for herself what to do with the coat. “That’s it—he wants it sent off to be cleaned.”

Karen was at a loss, though she saw the pitfall she had constructed for herself. When Stolz returned there would be conversation about the coat, where it had been found and what had been done with it; and whether she was able to argue Skip out of what he wanted to do, or not, she was in trouble up to her neck.

She looked mutely after Mrs. Havermann. She needed help, needed to confide; but Mrs. Havermann was already too far away.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Karen walked out to the terrace when class was dismissed for the mid-evening break, and she was startled to find Skip there waiting, smoking a cigarette, grinning at her. He pulled her close and kissed her, and something in Karen, constricted and repressed, born of her life at Mrs. Havermann’s, seemed to burst and flood her with warmth. She returned the kiss hungrily, clutching the shoulders of his jacket. Then she lay against him, grateful; here was someone to whom she could confide the disaster with the coat. She told Skip about it all in a rush.

Skip listened, at first with indifference. He’d heard already from Eddie of Karen’s reaction to the money, her frightened excitement about it. It took a moment to realize that this wasn’t more of the same, the reaction of an inexperienced girl, but that a bad break had really occurred. Then it struck him with irony that this would be exactly what was needed if he meant to string along with Big Tom and Uncle Willy. Now was the time to pretend everything was off, that he was afraid Stolz would be warned and have the money guarded. But even as he opened his mouth to speak Skip changed his mind. He noticed that Karen was looking at him closely in the dim light.

“What happened to your face?”