“She’s dead.” He saw the shock of these words go through her like a blow, draining her skin of color, her eyes of life. There wasn’t time for gentleness, but Eddie had to be gentle with her. He put an arm around her. “Don’t go back and look at her. Not if you liked her, and I guess you did.”

She said: “Liked her? I loved her. I just never could . . . She never let me show her.” She covered her face then and would have wept against him, but Eddie pushed her gently away.

“We’ve got to leave. Quick. Come on.”

He took her hand, and she let him lead her out through the rear door. At the car Skip had stripped off mask and gloves and was inside fitting the key into the switch. Eddie and Karen ran around to the other side and got in, Karen in the middle.

Skip started the motor, and then it coughed gently and died. He tried again, nursing it, giving it gas, and Eddie could hear the tired sparkless rattle as it turned over without catching, and the noise of loose fittings and the gradual wearing down of the battery. And over all this, Karen’s exhausted crying.

Eddie had stripped off the stocking from his face, the gloves. He was sweating now; his heart was pounding. The old motor ground and ground, and each time it turned over the sound was weaker and more dragging.

Skip looked at them jeeringly. “Anybody got any suggestions?”

“For Chrissakes get it started,” Eddie said.

The motor caught for a second time, hesitated for an instant that seemed an eternity, and then settled into its rackety rhythm. Eddie let out a long aching breath, unaware that he’d even been holding it.

The car slipped down the drive in the dark, and once in the street Skip switched on the lights and let it pick up speed.

Eddie said hotly, “I wish I’d never heard of that goddamn money.”

“We just had bad luck, that’s all,” Skip answered evenly. He was beginning to calm down somewhat, to reconsider what had really happened. He didn’t believe their situation to be completely hopeless. It was too bad of course that they couldn’t leave Karen here to palm off some yarn to the homicide dicks about strange, unknown men breaking in and killing Mrs. Havermann and mistreating herself. In his present mood he was more than ready to mark Karen up to leave the right impression with the cops. But he had no illusions about Karen standing up under questioning. She was too young and soft, too easily hurt. Skip jerked his head over his shoulder in the direction of the house. “Well, good-by Stolz’s dough, wherever you are.” He laughed a little under his breath.

Karen tried to draw away from him. “How can you make a joke . . . how can you act as if nothing had happened?”