Her lips continued to move, but no articulate words came forth. There was only a low moan each time she exhaled. When she lifted one of her hands, he saw that the inside of the palm was smeared with blood. He caught her wrist as she started to grasp his arm. The abruptness of his motion had some effect on her; she drew back from him, her eyes still staring and sightless, and then turned and led him down the hall. Shayne followed, holding tightly to her wrist. Her bare feet glided soundlessly on the carpet, and her breath wheezed in and out between set teeth. There was a back stairway at the end of the hall. Shayne put his left arm about her shoulders as they climbed the stairs side by side. Her flesh was cold under the thin gown. At the top of the stairs she turned to the right and stopped in front of a closed door. Her head moved jerkily, and her face was contorted with grief or remorse.

“She’s in there.”

Shayne opened the door and fumbled for a wall switch, keeping his arm tightly about Phyllis’s shoulders.

The switch lighted a shaded floor lamp standing near the foot of a bed. Shayne moved inside, and the girl moved with him. He closed the door softly with his heel and gazed down somberly at the body of a murdered woman lying outstretched on the bed. One white hand trailed down limply toward the floor, and there was the slow drip of blood into a thickening pool on the carpet.

Shayne’s arm tightened about the girl’s shoulders as a shudder traversed her body. He roughly turned her away while he stepped near the bed and looked down silently at the woman whom he had promised to protect from harm. She wore, he noticed, a gray tailored traveling-suit, with gray blouse and shoes, and she appeared not to have struggled against death. Blood was clotted on the white pillow and continued to seep from a gaping wound in her throat.

Shayne turned away from the bed, his left arm crushing Phyllis to him.