She was small, and delicately built. Pale, distraught, and disheveled as she was, she was something very special. Her chalk-white and definitely dirty face was triangular in shape, and lovely. Her frightened eyes were brown and large, and ringed with long, dark lashes. Her tangled hair was honey blonde. Her mouth, naked of lipstick and with marks showing where teeth had almost bitten through a lower lip, was a pallid, wistful flower.

One more minute, Malone told himself, and he’d be writing poetry.

The mink coat was a magnificent one. The dusty rose dress under it came, Malone realized, from one of the very best shops. The torn and muddy stockings he recognized as silk. Jewels glittered at her slim wrists.

“As I live and breathe!” Malone said pleasantly, taking out a cigar and starting to unwrap it. “Doris Dawn!”

Doris Dawn drew her first long breath in many hours. She glanced around the ring of hostile faces, then flung herself into the security of Malone’s warm and obvious friendliness. A faint color began to come back into her cheeks.

“You saved my life. I was out there—forever, trying to get enough nerve to crawl to a window. High places—they always—” The color faded again.

“You’d better put some makeup on,” Malone growled. “You look terrible.”

She almost smiled. She fumbled through her coat pockets, found a compact and lipstick, dropped them both through her trembling fingers. Malone picked them up for her. Pink Primrose lipstick, he noted approvingly. Exactly right for her pale skin.

He said, soothingly, “Relax. You’re safe now.”

“No. No, I’m not. That’s it.” She turned to Klutchetsky. “You’re a policeman. Do something. Someone tried to kill me.”

Klutchetsky and the eminent psychiatrist exchanged significant glances.

“Okay, sister,” Klutchetsky said wearily. “Just come along quietly now.”

Malone said, “Just a minute. Since when is it customary, in a case of attempted murder, to arrest the intended corpse?”

“Look, Malone,” Klutchetsky said. He paused and sighed deeply. “We appreciate your help. Okay. Now suppose you let the police department handle its own problems in its own way.”

“But I’m not a problem,” the girl cried out. “Someone—”

“That’s what you think,” Klutchetsky told her. “Am I right, Doc?” He paused. The eminent psychiatrist nodded his head briskly.

“He tried to kill me,” the girl gasped. “He will again. He put me out on that ledge and left me there. I was too scared to crawl back. I just held on. Until—”

“And who is this ‘he,’” Klutchetsky interrupted skeptically, “and what does he look like?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him.”

The police officer turned to the eminent psychiatrist. “See what I mean, Doc?” Again the psychiatrist nodded.