他想等海伦。不过，执行她的指示可能是最好的。当他走过一个街区的时候，他开始担心起来。要是那些尖叫声毕竟是真的怎么办？他坚定地告诉自己不是真的，然后继续向北走。走到下一个街区的尽头时，他开始担心她要怎么为自己尖叫所引发的事情找借口。当他走到州街和范布伦街的拐角处时，他已经决定回到费尔法克斯酒店去看看她出了什么事，不管发生什么。
He wanted to wait for Helene. Still, it was probably best to carry out her instructions. By the time he had covered one block, he began to worry. What if those screams had been genuine, after all? He told himself firmly they were not, and continued north. By the end of the next block he had begun to worry about how she was going to talk her way out of whatever she had screamed herself into. When he had reached the corner of State and Van Buren, he had decided to go back to the Fairfax Hotel and find out what had happened to her, e what might.
就在他做出这个决定的时候，一辆出租车在他面前停了下来，海伦跳了出来，眼睛明亮，面带微笑。
Just as he reached that decision a taxi stopped in front of him and Helene hopped out, bright-eyed and smiling.
“亲爱的！” 杰克无力地说。他带着一种绝望的神情紧紧握住她的手。
“Darling!” Jake said, inadequately. He clung to her hand with a kind of desperation.
“你觉得我的尖叫声怎么样？”
“How did you like my scream?”
他打了个哆嗦。“你到底干了什么？”
He shuddered. “What in God’s name did you do?”
她像一个高兴的孩子一样开心地笑着。“我一边尖叫着一边跑下楼梯，当服务员终于让我安静下来可以说话的时候，我告诉他你抢了我放在袜子里的一张二十美元钞票然后跑了。”
She smiled happily, like a pleased child. “I ran down the stairs screaming, and when the clerk finally quieted me enough to talk, I told him you’d grabbed a twenty-dollar bill that I was carrying in my stocking and ran off with it.”
“好吧，” 三十秒后杰克严肃地说，“这又让我以后不能去一家酒店了。” 他擦了擦额头，又说，“要是他们叫了警察怎么办？”
“Well,” Jake said grimly, thirty seconds later, “that makes one more hotel I have to stay out of in the future.” He mopped his brow and added, “Suppose they’d sent for the police?”
“笨蛋。我就知道他们不会。事实上”—— 她的眼中露出一丝不自在的尴尬 ——“如果我安静地离开并且什么都不说，服务员从收银机里拿出十美元给了我。我不得不收下，但我到底该拿这钱怎么办呢？这是脏钱！”
“Idiot. I knew they wouldn’t. In fact”-a look of unfortable embarrassment came into her eyes- “the clerk gave me a ten-dollar bill out of the cash register if I’d go quietly away and say nothing. I had to take it, but what on earth shall I do with it? It’s tainted money!”
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