She seemed to have perfect control of herself, making her face over, applying lipstick with the tip of her finger.

Once more I tried to say something and couldn’t. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say. It was like wanting to sing and not being able to.

I turned my attention back to the apartment house, and tried to concentrate on watching for Sally Durke. I wished I had some way of telling whether she’d gone out. I thought of going back to the apartment house and ringing her doorbell. That would let me know whether she was in, but I couldn’t think of anything to say if she was in. Then, she’d know I was shadowing her—or would she? At any rate, she’d know I was hanging around.

Alma raised her hand and started to button the collar of her blouse.

“Do you,” I asked, “want to tell me about that now?”

“Yes,” she said, and then after a moment added, “I’m frightened, Donald. I guess I’m an awful baby.”

“What are you frightened of?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you think the arrival of Sandra’s brother will make a difference?”

“No. . . . That is, I shouldn’t say that. I just don’t know.”

“What do you know about him, Alma?”

“Not very much. Whenever Sandra speaks of him, she says they didn’t get along very well.”

“You mean recently?”

“Well, yes.”

“What does she say about him?”

“Just that he’s peculiar and very independent. The fact that Sandra’s his sister doesn’t mean a thing to him.”

“And yet she turned to him when she needed help?”

“I don’t know,” Alma Hunter said. “I think he came to her. That is, I think he got in touch with her by long distance telephone. I don’t know. I have an idea—tell me, Donald, do you suppose there’s any chance he’s in partnership with Morgan?”

“What do you mean? On this slot-machine business?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a chance of anything,” I said. “What makes you ask?”

“I don’t know. Just from the way he seems to be acting, and from a remark Sandra let drop, and—while you were there in the room with him, I could hear a little of the conversation, not all of it, but a word here and there which gave me the general drift.”

“Morgan is,” I said, “a husband. He’s a defendant in a divorce action. The papers are going to be served on him. Then he’ll either come into court, or he’ll default and cease being a husband. Therefore, why worry about it?”

“Because I think you can’t dispose of him as simply as that. I think he’s—dangerous.”

“Now,” I said, “we’re getting to the point I wanted to talk about.”

“What?”

“Those bruises on your neck.”