"It's very nice of you to tell me these things," Karen said humbly.

"You'll find it pays to stay on good terms with your colleagues in crime," Helen said. "We can help each other out now and then because we aren't competing, in the usual sense; our merchandise is one of a kind. If a customer comes in who is looking for a particular style or size I don't have, I'll send her on to you, and you do the same for me. If a check bounces on you, you warn me, and vice versa. Once you acquire a reputation for square dealing, people will be more likely to deal fairly with you. Don't expect any special favors, though," she added with a smile. "Not even from me."

"But doesn't it make sense for dealers to agree beforehand not to bid against each other-taking turns on the items they all want?"

Helen tried to look shocked. "Why, Karen, that's considered unethical, if not downright immoral." The amusement she had attempted to suppress surfaced in an unexpected dimple; grinning, she added, "I'm sure you wouldn't dream of doing such a thing, any more than I would. At least you shouldn't discuss it aloud."

She turned with apparent casualness to a heap of linens that had been left in a hopeless tangle by inquiring buyers. Helen's tanned, capable hands sorted swiftly through them.

"Nothing here," she announced. "Actually, I seldom buy at auctions. The merchandise is usually in terrible condition."

"Where do you get your stock?" Karen asked innocently.

Helen moved on to another pile of fabrics without answering. Karen was about to repeat the question when Cheryl nudged her. "Would you tell other dealers about your sources?" she whispered.

"Oh," Karen whispered back.

There were a few old dresses and bits of wearing apparel in the pile Helen was examining. One caught Karen's eye, and after Helen had tossed it aside she picked it up.

It was a dress made of ivory silk, the body unfitted, the modest neckline bordered with lace. A deep flounce of lace trimmed the hem, and rows of pearls, some of them missing, edged the neck and hipline. The rotted remains of a silk flower clung horribly to the left hip, like a big brown spider.

"How pretty," said the romantic Cheryl, seeing the dress as it had once been, not as it was now. "What period is it, Karen?"

Karen glanced at Helen. "Late twenties or early thirties, I think," she said timidly.

Helen nodded. "It's in terrible condition. The lace is hopelessly rotted and most of the beads are gone."

"But the fabric of the dress is in good shape," Cheryl said.

She was right; there were not even perspiration stains, which, as Karen had learned, made a silk garment useless to a dealer. Perspiration rotted silk and left a stain that no cleaner could remove.

"It's a wedding dress," she said.

Cheryl laughed. "She must have got married in January, in an unheated church. Or else she was the calmest bride in recorded history."

"But who would sell her wedding dress, or her mother's?" Karen asked. "I bought a veil from someone the other day; honestly, it's enough to make you a cynic about marriage."

"It was mine," said a voice behind them.

An arm reached out and seized the dress. The arm belonged to an elderly woman wearing a cotton house dress and faded sneakers. Her lined, deeply tanned face was bare of make-up and her hair had been pulled back into a tight, ugly bun. Her eyes, deep-set under bushy gray brows, fixed on the dress with strange intensity.

"Mine," she repeated in a crooning voice. "I wore it in 1931. I was seventeen years old. Henry was thirty-eight. Quite a catch, Henry was. A member of the legal profession, from a fine old family. I poisoned him in 1965."

With no change of tone or expression she tossed the dress onto the table and stalked away.

"What did she say?" Karen gasped.

Helen chuckled. "Mrs. Grossmuller is a little…" She twirled her finger alongside her ear.

"She didn't really poison him, did she?" Cheryl asked, fascinated.

"Who knows? He was a judge, and reputedly one of the meanest bastards in the state. Mrs. G. was never arrested, anyhow."

Helen wandered off, with a casual flip of her hand. The shed was filling up and the auctioneer came in to start the sale.

As Karen had expected, Helen bid on the wedding dress. So did Mrs. Grossmuller. She started the bidding at "two bits" and kept repeating the same amount in a stentorian voice, which the auctioneer blandly ignored. He knocked the dress down to Karen for twenty-five dollars. She knew she could replace the rotted lace from pieces in Mrs. Ferris' collection. Repaired and restored, the dress would probably sell for two hundred dollars or more. Vintage wedding dresses were popular with young brides who went in for the nostalgic look.

She bought a few other garments and had to be forcibly restrained from bidding on a Bavarian chocolate set to which she had taken a fancy. It went for a price at least as high as anything Julie would have asked. Helen had been right about the album quilt; the collector she had pointed out bought it for $675.

It was late afternoon before Karen and Cheryl decided there was nothing else they wanted. They paid for their purchases and gathered up their belongings. As they left the building, Helen Johnson raised a beckoning hand, and they stopped to speak with her.

"Here's my card," she said, handing it to Karen. "Come by or give me a call sometime."

"That's very kind of you," Karen said.

Helen shrugged. "As I said, we can sometimes give one another a helping hand."

"I don't have a card yet." Karen dug in her purse, found paper and pencil. "Here's my address and phone number…Thanks a lot, Helen."

"Don't thank me till I do something for you. Oh-oh, here comes Mrs. Grossmuller; excuse me if I make myself scarce. I've heard that story about her poisoning dear Henry too many times."

She glided gracefully out of the danger zone, but Karen, trying to pick up the chairs and clothing she had set down when she wrote her address for Helen, was fairly caught.

"Changed my mind," Mrs. Grossmuller announced. "I don't want to sell my dress. Give you two bits for it."

"But I paid twenty-five dollars," Karen protested.

She expected a scene and was not looking forward to an argument with the old woman who was, despite her age, heavy-set and formidable-looking. To her relief and surprise, Mrs. Grossmuller suddenly changed her mind.

"Oh, well, that's all right then. You might's well have it as anyone. What did you say your name was?"

Somewhat reluctantly, Karen told her. "How do you do," said Mrs. Grossmuller, in an abrupt change to stateliness. "I am Mrs. Henry Grossmuller. Judge Grossmuller's widow. I poisoned him, you know. In 1965."

Mrs. Grossmuller trailed them to their car, chatting amiably. Except for occasional references to the murder of her husband, her conversation was perfectly lucid until Karen and Cheryl were in the car and Karen had started the engine. Then Mrs. Grossmuller thrust her head in the open window and grinned fiendishly at Karen.

"Twenty-five dollars, eh? Thank you, my dear, I admit the money will not be unwelcome. But you're loony, you know; the dress isn't worth two bits."

The last they saw of her she was wandering down the line of parked cars.

"You don't suppose she's driving, do you?" Cheryl exclaimed.

"How else could she get here?" Karen steered carefully across the bumpy field. "Just because she has a little bee in her bonnet doesn't mean she's incompetent."

"So you say," Cheryl remarked skeptically. "One thing about this business, Karen: you sure meet some fascinating people."

THEY stopped for supper at a country inn, to avoid a sudden thunderstorm that rumbled through, turning the road into a shallow, running stream. Karen felt self-conscious about entering a restaurant in her sweat-stained, rumpled clothes, but when Cheryl explained to the hostess that they had been auctioning all day, the woman nodded understandingly. "Fred Behm's? Hear he had a good crowd. Hope you were lucky."