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it’s two years old, the photo.”
    It was a picture of a small, round face encircled by tight black curls. A sweet face, thought Madame Karitska, with huge, anxious eyes. As the eyes
would
be, she reflected, if the child could neither hear voices, nor voice her own thoughts and needs. “Taken two years ago,” she repeated. “She must, surely, be in that building, Pruden. It’s a high-rise, you said?”
    He glanced at his watch and stood up. “Fifteen floors and basement, yes. Time for me to go, because there’s another search pending this morning, with more men, including me, fanning out, and the chief’s secured permission now from all the absent tenants to let us search their apartments too. People on vacation or business trips. This will be the most thorough search yet.”
    â€œThen good luck and Godspeed,” she told him, “and do try for a good sleep tonight or you’ll wear yourself out and I shall have to worry about you. As will Jan.”
    Pruden grinned. “Oh, Jan already worries, but working with children at the Settlement House she especially worries about a child in hiding, cold and hungry, whatever she may have done.”
    Madame Karitska glanced again at the circular he’d left on the table. “Please—let me know if you find her, will you?”
    â€œI promise,” he said, and with a last sip of coffee and a vague salute he opened the door and was gone.
    It was late evening when the phone rang, and Madame Karitska knew at once that it would be Pruden. She said, “You’ve found Jenny?”
    He said grimly, “In the basement of the building, living on garbage and sleeping in an empty garbage container, her dress stained with dried blood. I told you she was mute?”
    â€œYes,” said Madame Karitska.
    He added angrily, “And now we find we had no idea what being mute
really
meant. Swope asks questions; she can’t hear them. More questions, she can’t answer them. Somehow I thought she would be able to read lips, manage
something
, shake her head yes or no, but impossible when she can’t
hear
.”
    â€œWhat about Mrs. Epworth? There must have been some way she and her husband communicated with her.”
    She could hear his sigh over the phone. “Under her doctor’s care, heavily sedated—tranquilizers and sleeping pills . . . we have to wait. In the meantime we’ve got this terrified child and—”
    â€œStill terrified?” asked Madame Karitska.
    â€œAs well as dehydrated and undernourished. She’s with a children’s agency for the night, but how we’re ever going to learn what possessed her to turn violent and kill I don’t know. Mrs. Epworth might have a clue but we can’t see her yet, doctor’s orders.”
    â€œPruden,” said Madame Karitska thoughtfully.
    â€œYes?”
    She was silent and then, “I
might
be able to help. If, for instance, there is the bloodstained dress available.”
    â€œHelp,” he repeated, and then, “My God, yes, do you think, really think, a
dress
?”
    â€œThere could—
might
—still be a way,” she told him.
    He whistled through his teeth. “I should have thought of that. Whether the chief would allow . . . the dress is under lock and key, but if he’d allow . . . you might have to come to headquarters?”
    â€œI’d be glad to,” she told him.
    â€œGreat. I’ll see what I can arrange, and get back to you in the morning. But I thought you’d sleep better, knowing she’s been found.”
    â€œIndeed I shall,” she said. “Until tomorrow, then.”
    The next day, at fifteen minutes before one o’clock, Swope called for her in a police car and drove her across town to headquarters.
    â€œThe chief’s in a foul mood,” he warned her. “Of course he knows about you now, but he doesn’t
want
to know about you. Too