Sensing that Virginia would return there, Bill follows and meets her. Virginia never comes to the party, however, and instead walks Devil along the street of her attack. Bline, the officer in charge of the investigation into her attack, gives a party in her honor at El Madhouse, hoping that Virginia might be able to identify her assailant among the partygoers. After Bill buys Raoul's last statue, he sneaks into Virginia's dressing room and finds that her copy of the statue is gone. There, Raoul tells Bill that the statue is called 'Screaming Mimi' and was created by a sculptor named Charlie Weston. Afterward, Bill discovers that Lola bought the statue at a gift shop owned by Raoul Reynarde. When Bill goes to the hospital to question Virginia about the statue in her dressing room, she denies that it was ever there. After Virginia is taken to the hospital, Bill goes to the newsroom to review the file of Lola Lake, a dancer recently killed by 'The Slasher.' As Bill studies the article and accompanying photo, he is startled to see the statue of a nude, frightened woman lying next to Lola's body. Before her Great Dane, Devil, can drive the assailant away, the man slashes Virginia across her stomach.

On a dark street later that night, Virginia is attacked by a knife-wielding assailant. Greenwood, now posing as Green, Virginia's manager, enters and after gruffly dismissing Bill, admonishes Virginia to follow his orders. As Bill flirts with Virginia in her dressing room, he becomes intrigued by the nude statue of a frightened woman that he spots on her dressing table. After Virginia finishes her performance, Joann Mapes, the nightclub's proprietor, takes Bill backstage to meet her new star dancer. One night, Bill Sweeney, a reporter who covers the nightclub circuit for the local newspaper, comes to El Madhouse and is mesmerized by Virginia's sensuous dancing. A short time later, Greenwood decides the time has come for them to leave the sanitarium, and they move to the city, where Virginia changes her name to Yolanda Lange and finds work as an exotic dancer at the El Madhouse nightclub. Over the next six months, Virginia falls under Greenwood's control and he becomes increasingly possessive of his voluptuous blonde patient. Charlie then drives Virginia, who is suffering from traumatic shock, to the Highland Sanitarium, where he commits her to the care of Dr. Alerted by Virginia's hysterical screams, her half brother, sculptor Charlie Weston, runs onto the front porch of his house and shoots the assailant. As her little dog starts yapping, an escaped inmate from a nearby mental institution steps out of the bushes, stabs the dog and then attacks Virginia.

In Laguna Beach, California, Virginia Weston runs to a bathhouse after a swim in the ocean.

The Screaming Mimi by Fredric Brown