“It’s like December. I need a sweater,” said Francine, eyes shut, against Lavinia.

The policeman said, “I guess you can go now, ladies. You might drop by the station tomorrow for a little more questioning.”

Lavinia and Francine walked away from the police and the sheet over the delicate thing upon the ravine grass.

Lavinia felt her heart going loudly in her and she was cold, too, with a February cold; there were bits of sudden snow all over her flesh, and the moon washed her brittle fingers whiter, and she remembered doing all the talking while Francine just sobbed against her.

A voice called from far off, “You want an escort, ladies?”

“No, we’ll make it,” said Lavinia to nobody, and they walked on. They walked through the nuzzling, whispering ravine, the ravine of whispers and clicks, the little world of investigation growing small behind them with its lights and voices.

“I’ve never seen a dead person before,” said Francine.

Lavinia examined her watch as if it was a thousand miles away on an arm and wrist grown impossibly distant. “It’s only eight-thirty. We’ll pick up Helen and get on to the show.”

“The show!” Francine jerked.

“It’s what we need. We’ve got to forget this. It’s not good to remember. If we went home now we’d remember. We’ll go to the show as if nothing happened.”

“Lavinia, you don’t mean it!”

“I never meant anything more in my life. We need to laugh now and forget.”

“But Elizabeth’s back there—your friend, my friend—”

“We can’t help her; we can only help ourselves. Come on.”

They started up the ravine side, on the stony path, in the dark. And suddenly there, barring their way, standing very still in one spot, not seeing them, but looking on down at the moving lights and the body and listening to the official voices, was Douglas Spaulding.

He stood there, white as a mushroom, with his hands at his sides, staring down into the ravine.

“Get home!” cried Francine.

He did not hear.

“You!” shrieked Francine. “Get home, get out of this place, you hear? Get home, get home, get home!”

Douglas jerked his head, stared at them as if they were I. not there. His mouth moved. He gave a bleating sound. Then, · silently, he whirled about and ran. He ran silently up the distant hills into the warm darkness.

Francine sobbed and cried again and, doing this, walked on with Lavinia Nebbs.

“There you are! I thought you ladies’d never come!” Helen Greer stood tapping her foot atop her porch steps. “You’re only an hour late, that’s all. What happened?”

“We—” started Francine.

Lavinia clutched her arm tight. “There was a commotion. Somebody found Elizabeth Ramsell in the ravine.”

“Dead? Was she—dead?”

Lavinia nodded. Helen gasped and put her hand to her throat. “Who found her?”

Lavinia held Francine’s wrist firmly. “We don’t know.”

The three young women stood in the summer night looking at each other. “I’ve got a notion to go in the house and lock the doors,” said Helen at last.

But finally she went to get a sweater, for though it was still warm, she, too, complained of the sudden winter night. While she was gone Francine whispered frantically, “Why didn’t you tell her?”

“Why upset her?” said Lavinia. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow’s plenty of time.”

The three women moved along the street under the black trees, past suddenly locked houses. How soon the news had spread outward from the ravine, from house to house, porch to porch, telephone to telephone. Now, passing, the three women felt eyes looking out at them from curtained windows as locks rattled into place. How strange the popsicle, the vanilla night, the night of close-packed ice cream, of mosquito-lotioned wrists, the night of running children suddenly veered from their games and put away behind glass, behind wood, the popsicles in melting puddles of lime and strawberry where they fell when the children were scooped indoors. Strange the hot rooms with the sweating people pressed tightly back into them behind the bronze knobs and knockers. Baseball bats and balls lay upon the unfootprinted lawns. A half-drawn, white-chalk game of hopscotch lay on the broiled, steamed sidewalk. It was as if someone had predicted freezing weather a moment ago.

“We’re crazy being out on a night like this,” said Helen.

“Lonely One won’t kill three ladies,” said Lavinia. “There’s safety in numbers. And besides, it’s too soon. The killings always come a month separated.”

A shadow fell across their terrified faces. A figure loomed behind a tree. As if someone had struck an organ a terrible blow with his fist, the three women gave off a scream, in three different shrill notes.

“Got you!” roared a voice. The man plunged at them. He came into the light, laughing. He leaned against a tree, pointing at the ladies weakly, laughing again.

“Hey! I’m the Lonely One!” said Frank Dillon.

“Frank Dillon!”

“Frank!”

“Frank,” said Lavinia, “if you ever do a childish thing like that again, may someone riddle you with bullets!”

“What a thing to do!”

Francine began to cry hysterically.

Frank Dillon stopped smiling. “Say, I’m sorry.”

“Go away!” said Lavinia. “Haven’t you heard about Elizabeth Ramsell—found dead in the ravine? You running around scaring women! Don’t speak to us again!”

“Aw, now—”

They moved. He moved to follow.

“Stay right there, Mr. Lonely One, and scare yourself. Go take a look at Elizabeth Ramsell’s face and see if it’s funny. Good night!” Lavinia took the other two on along the street of trees and stars, Francine holding a kerchief to her face.

“Francine, it was only a joke.” Helen turned to Lavinia. “Why’s she crying so hard?”

“We’ll tell you when we get downtown. We’re going to the show no matter what! Enough’s enough. Come on now, get your money ready, we’re almost there!”

The drugstore was a small pool of sluggish air which the great wooden fans stirred in tides of arnica and tonic and soda-smell out onto the brick streets.

“I need a nickel’s worth of green peppermint chews,” said Lavinia to the druggist. His face was set and pale, like all the faces they had seen on the half-empty streets. “For eating in the show,” said Lavinia as the druggist weighed out a nickel’s worth of the green candy with a silver shovel.

“You sure look pretty tonight, ladies. You looked cool this afternoon, Miss Lavinia, when you was in for a chocolate soda. So cool and nice that someone asked after you.”

“Oh?”

“Man sitting at the counter—watched you walk out. Said to me,’say, who’s that?’ Why, that’s Lavinia Nebbs, prettiest maiden lady in town, I said. ’she’s beautiful,’ he said. ‘Where does she live?’ “Here the druggist paused uncomfortably.

“You didn’t!” said Francine. “You didn’t give him her address, I hope? You didn’t!”

“I guess I didn’t think. I said, ‘Oh, over on Park Street, you know, near the ravine.’ A casual remark. But now, tonight, them finding the body, I heard a minute ago, I thought, My God, what’ve I done!” He handed over the package, much too full.

“You fool!” cried Francine, and tears were in her eyes.

“I’m sorry. Course, maybe it was nothing.”

Lavinia stood with the three people looking at her, staring at her. She felt nothing. Except, perhaps, the slightest prickle of excitement in her throat. She held out her money automatically.

“There’s no charge on those peppermints,” said the druggist, turning to shuffle some papers.

“Well, I know what I’m going to do right now!” Helen stalked out of the drugshop. “I’m calling a taxi to take us all home. I’ll be no part of a hunting party for you, Lavinia. That man was up to no good. Asking about you. You want to be dead in the ravine next?”

“It was just a man,” said Lavinia, turning in a slow circle to look at the town.