The Complete Adventures of Toffee

by Charles F. Myers

  Then, a door closed somewhere, and a distinctly antiseptic smell was whispering to Marc that he was in the receiving room of a hospital. He lay still and kept his eyes closed for a moment. His head had become the uneasy heir to a dull throbbing feeling.

  After a moment of silent consideration, he opened his eyes and then closed them quickly. He could have sworn that he’d seen Toffee smiling down at him. But that was impossible! It couldn’t possibly happen twice in one lifetime to the same man,—not one that drank as little as he did, anyway. In another moment, however, a pair of warm lips were pressed firmly against his own, to tell him that it not only could happen, but had. In a mood of utter helplessness, he did not resist.

  “Well, that’s more like it!” Toffee said happily.

  Marc immediately became starkly upright on the slab-like examination table, and at once, Toffee’s wayward mode of dress was forcibly recalled to him. She still wore the same filmy, transparent scrap of material, and it, for its part, still seemed to cling to her remarkable figure reluctantly, as though having urgent business elsewhere. It was a material that could conceivably be put to a wide variety of uses, but it was unfortunate that not one of these uses was, in the remotest way, connected with the coverage of the human body.

  “You—you—you—No!” Marc sputtered incoherently.

  “No?” asked Toffee.

  “No! You can’t be here!” Marc gaped. “It isn’t right! You’ll just have to go back to where you came from.”

  Toffee’s expression swiftly became that of the patient martyr. “Do I have to explain it to you every time?” she asked. “You know perfectly well that I’ve materialized from your subconscious, and I can’t possibly return until the proper time—whenever that it. I promise faithfully to disappear when you sleep or lose consciousness—then I have to go back—but until my mission is accomplished, I have to keep right on materializing during every one of your waking hours. I do wish you’d get used to the idea.”

  Marc winced perceptibly. “Your mission?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Toffee said. “You men are all alike,—just a pack of selfish dogs. You must have needed me for something or you wouldn’t have dreamed me up again.”

  “But you can’t stay this time,” Marc wailed. “I’m a married man now.”

  “Oh, don’t let that bother you,” Toffee said reassuringly. “I don’t mind a bit. In fact, I think it’s lovely for you to be married.”

  Marc leaned defeatedly back on the table and buried his face in his hands. “Oh, no—no,” he murmured mournfully. Then, he sat up quickly as a voice sounded from just outside the door.

  “Is this the right room?” it asked. “Is this where you put Pillsworth?” Then there followed a silence in which another unseen being apparently answered.

  “Holy smoke!” Marc whispered. ‘You’ve got to get out of here! If they find you in here, like that, all hell will break loose.” His eyes searched the room frantically and finally came to grateful rest on a white cloth covered screen in the far corner. He pointed quickly to it. “Get behind that!”

  “What for?” hissed Toffee, placing a slender hand defiantly on a round, smooth hip. “Why do you always want me to hide just when a man comes around?”

  “Don’t argue!” Marc said threatingly. “Get behind that screen!”

  “Oh, all right,” Toffee pouted, “but I think you’re just a kill-joy.”

  SLOWLY, she crossed the room, and slid behind the screen, just as the door opened to admit one of the tallest internes Marc had ever seen. In his white uniform, he looked like one of the chalk cliffs of Dover, and his ruddy face might well have been the sun rising over that cliff.

  “Well, Mr. Pillsworth!” he called with hateful professional joviality. “I see that we’re up. How are we feeling after our little accident?”

  “Were you in it too?” Marc asked dryly, but the young man was not to be set aside with so trivial a rebuke. He, with his silly smile, thought Marc, had probably attended patients for years that hated his very guts.

  “We were very lucky,” the fellow continued offensively.

  “Were we?”

  “Yes. You haven’t really been hurt at all. According to the report, you’ve no internal injuries, and only a few bruises that won’t show at all, since they’re located . . .”

  “Never mind!” Marc cut in hastily, glancing toward the screen. “I’ll find out where they are for myself.”

  The interne lounged his way across the room, and dangerously rested his arm on the top edge of the screen. Marc wondered if he were going to have a relapse. He almost wished he were still unconscious.

  “I—I’ll be permitted to leave the hospital, won’t I?” he asked shakily.

  The young man nodded. “You’re perfectly all right. You’ll just need to take it easy for a day or so. We might have kept you here for observation, but the hospital is too crowded. We tried to call your wife, but she was out.”

  “Fine!” said Marc. “And where is my brief case?”

  “Brief case?” the fellow asked stupidly.

  “Yes. Brief case. The one I was carrying when I was hit.”

  “But there wasn’t any.”

  Marc felt a rush of terror which subsided almost immediately. It had probably been taken back to the office. After all, his name and address was all over the thing. Then, once again, his heart leaped to his throat, and the brief case was forgotten, as he saw the interne’s hand slip lazily behind the screen. Marc needn’t have worried himself about what was going to happen, for it happened instantly, and no one could have prevented it anyway.

  The young man’s red face turned an extravagant shade of deep purple, as his anguished cry rang out through the room like a call from the damned. Moaning wretchedly, he bent double and pressed his injured hand between his knees. The screen tottered drunkenly for a moment, and then clattered to the floor to reveal Toffee engaged in a half-won battle to wedge herself into a stiffly starched nurse’s uniform.

  The fire of virtuous outrage that blazed in Toffee’s eyes, as she stepped over the screen, forcing her arm through a reluctant sleeve, clearly implied that, compared to her, Elsie Dinsmore was nothing more than a loose living slattern.

  “You bit me!” the interne wailed.

  “You bet I did!” snapped Toffee. “And next time you come groping around where I’m dressing, with those great hammy paws of yours, I’ll gnaw them off clear up to the elbows!”

  In the face of such heated self-righteousness, the young man could hardly doubt her statement. Obviously, he was being tormented by the picture of himself, continuing, armless, through the remainder of his life. “I’m sorry,” he said contritely, apparently forgetting that, in view of the excellent nurse’s quarters just upstairs, the indignant girl had chosen a rather singular place to dress.

  “You should be,” Toffee replied icily. “If it happens again, I’ll report you.” And without waiting for an answer, she started regally from the room.

  “Button that dress!” Marc yelled inadvertently. “Button your lip,” Toffee replied composedly, disappearing around the edge of the door.

  Marc wished desperately that he could go after her. There was no telling what she might do. He only knew that, having Toffee back, was merely a matter of traveling the shortest road to utter confusion at the highest rate of speed. He shivered at the thought of what doubtlessly lay ahead.

  AS MARC swung out of the hospital door, the last brilliant rays of a dying sun almost blinded him for a moment, and he didn’t see Toffee, at first, sitting there on the steps, chin in hand, and looking very much like a completely thoughtless rendition of “The Thinker.”

  “What kept you so long?” she asked irritably.

  “I had to sign some papers,” Marc explained. “It’s too bad that no one got the license number on the car that hit me. It would have . . .” Suddenly, he stopped, and stared at Toffee, mouth agape. The white uniform that he had last seen her in had miraculously been replaced, in p
art, by a black evening gown, that had obviously seen hell at the ruthless hand of its cutter. It had hardly a back to call its own, and as for the front, instead of covering Toffee’s amazing figure, it seemed merely to draw a heavy black line around it for emphasis.

  A look of pain came into Marc’s eyes. “Where did you get that?” he asked weakly.

  Toffee motioned vaguely across the street. “At that store over there,” she answered serenely. “I charged it to you.”

  Marc groaned. “What was the matter with the uniform? I thought it was very neat.”

  “Wasn’t it, though?” Toffee replied disdainfully. “It’s no wonder all the people in the hospital are sick. It’s enough to make anyone ill, just having to look at a woman all trussed up in one of those starch ridden atrocities.” She pivoted on the steps, and a shimmering black cloud moved gracefully above her lovely legs. “Isn’t it a dream?”

  “Yes,” Marc said emphatically. “A perfect nightmare. You look like something that should be raided and hauled off to headquarters. Why, if Julie . . .” A sudden chill lodged itself in his spine. “Holy Smoke! Let’s get out of here!”

  Unceremoniously, he took her by the arm and rushed her down the length of the steps to a taxi that was luckily standing idle in the hospital drive. As they approached it, an aged head, looking not unlike a mildewed melon, jutted from the driver’s window, and two faded eyes widened with surprise. From wrinkled lips, a thin whistle sounded feebly into the dimming day.

  “That’s what I like about this world,” Toffee said, getting into the cab. “Everyone seems so happy. At least the men do. They’re always whistling.”

  “OH, I remember this place,” Toffee said, as Marc opened the door to the agency.

  “I wish you didn’t,” Marc said flatly. “Without a memory, you’re a terror, with one, you’re a positive menace.” He swung the door wide and motioned toward the steps, “Get in there, out of sight.”

  “And waste this beautiful dress?” she asked disappointedly. “I thought you were taking me out somewhere.”

  “You were wrong,” Marc said shortly. “And besides, that dress has already been wasted until there’s hardly anything left of it. It’s indecent.”

  “Yes. I know,” giggled Toffee, starting up the steps.

  For a moment, they continued in silence, until Marc suddenly stopped short. There was a light burning just beyond the head of the stairs. “Wait a minute,” he commanded. “Miss Quirtt is still up there. The efficiency of that female is enough to make your blood run cold, and she’s got a mind like a clogged up cesspool. If she gets a load of you in that dress, it’ll be a public scandal by morning.”

  “What are we going to do?” asked Toffee.

  Marc considered this for a moment, and came to a decision. “We’re going on up,” he said determinedly. “But you’ll have to stay behind me. Stick to me like wall paper.”

  Toffee nodded enthusiastically. Sticking to Marc like wall paper seemed to be her fondest dream. She stood aside to let him pass.

  The minute Marc stepped into the outer office, into the presence of Miss Quirtt, he realized the error of his instructions to Toffee. In her effort to stick to him, she was also treading on his heels, and Marc, never too sure-footed, anyway, found himself romping helplessly across the office with all the self-conscious abandon of a performing porpoise. Miss Quirtt, still at her desk, looked up in alarm, her pale eyes filled with wonder.

  “Mr. Pillsworth!” she squeaked.

  Marc, without answering her, lunged drunkenly toward the door to his office, like a drowning man grasping for a life line. Reaching it, he drew it open, careful to continue facing Miss Quirtt, and swung his free arm behind him with all the feeble strength he had left. A soft rustling sound told him that Toffee, willy-nilly, was safely out of sight. He said a silent prayer of thanks as he noted that the office was dark.

  “Hello, Miss Quirtt,” he said, smiling stiffly. “I just dropped in to pick up my brief case.”

  “Your brief case?”

  Unexpectedly, from behind, slender fingers were digging lightly into Marc’s ribs, and all of a sudden, he was giggling helplessly. “Ye—yes,” he simpered like a feeble minded school boy. “My—my brief case!”

  His hands crossed violently in midair, and came dawn to his sides with a resounding slap. Miss Quirtt, taking all this in with horrified eyes, seemed in acute danger of leaping over her desk and making a run for it.

  “Mister Pillsworth!” she cried.

  Marc immediately sobered, as the fingers withdrew. “I was parted from my brief case in an accident,” he explained hopefully. “I thought it might have been returned here.”

  “He’s been parted from a lot more than his brief case,” Miss Quirtt murmured desperately to herself.

  “Well,” Marc demanded. “Is it here or not?”

  “It is not,” the miserable woman answered decisively. “And what’s more, Mr. Reece called to say that if you didn’t have your campaign in his office by morning, it wouldn’t be considered.” She seemed almost glad to announce this piece of bad news.

  Marc’s expression became darkly grave, and then unaccountably, it seemed, changed to one of high-hearted glee, as the unseen fingers played lightly over his ribs for a second time. Miss Quirtt clutched frantically at the edge of the desk to keep from slipping to the floor.

  “You do that once more,” she gasped, “and I’ll scream!”

  The anoying fingers withdrew, and Marc’s eyes filled with distaste. “You needn’t,” he said evenly. “You couldn’t be safer, believe me.” As he swung about, to slam the door after him, however, he caught a glimpse of the dreadful woman, scurrying out of the office like an unbalanced scorpion.

  IT WAS a mistake that Marc started across the room without first turning on the lights, for his very first step brought him in violent contact with Toffee, and the darkened room instantly became the sounding board for a series of scrambling, grunting noises that were far from reassuring.

  “Let go of me!” Toffee shrieked as she hit the floor.

  “Get your heel out of my ear, and maybe I can,” Marc rasped furiously. In the ensuing mad scramble to let go of each other, they became so helplessly entangled that finally, in desperation, they both gave up. It was in this edifying moment that the room suddenly became ablaze with light.

  Marc looked up to find Toffee sitting rigidly upright on his chest, her gaze directed at a chair across the room, her eyes filled with horror.

  For an awful moment, the room became starkly silent, as Julie rose from the chair and stared down at them. Her blue eyes gave Marc a graphic description of a glacial age that he had thought long dead. The light flashed in her blond hair, as she lowered her face to Toffee’s.

  “Get off my husband, you nasty little harpy,” she rasped.

  Dazedly, Toffee did as she was told, and Julie turned her attention to Marc.

  “And as for you, you double dealing ogre; get up off that floor and stop looking like the less intelligent half of a seal act. And you needn’t bother saying that she’s your cousin, either. I’ve heard that one before. Even your family couldn’t produce anything that depraved. She probably has a police record that would stretch from here to Shanghai.”

  “I have nothing to hide!” Toffee put in elegantly, refusing to accept this blot on her character.

  Julie’s answering gaze lingered malignantly on the black dress. “Lucky for you,” she said caustically. “You’d be in a really rotten spot for it, if you did.”

  “But Julie! You don’t understand!” Marc cried, disentangling his long legs, and getting uncertainly to his feet.

  “I’ve understood for longer than you think!” Julie cried angrily. “I’ve always suspected that this sort of thing was going on around here, and when you broke our luncheon date, I thought I’d come down to find out the reason. I knew if I waited around long enough, something would turn up.”

  Marc turned beseechingly to Toffee. “Tell her,” he pleaded
. “Tell her I’m a good husband.”

  Toffee, flattered at being invited to take such an important part in this domestic drama, turned beamingly to Julie. “You just don’t know what a wonderful husband you have,” she announced innocently.

  “I daresay,” fumed Julie. “And someday, when you’re not too exhausted from frisking around on the floor with him, suppose you drop around and tell me all about it!”

  “She doesn’t know what she’s saying!” Marc cried.

  “Don’t ever tell her,” Julie said with false sweetness, “or you’ll ruin some of the liveliest testimony ever written into a court record.”

  “Court record?”

  “The divorce courts do keep records, don’t they?”

  “Divorce!”

  The echo of Marc’s cry was still in the air, as Julie crossed to the door.

  “Yes. Divorce, Marc Pillsworth!” she said, turning back. “And I do mean you.”

  “But—but you haven’t any grounds,” Marc said hopefully,

  “Don’t worry about that,” Julie replied, opening the door. “By the time I get to court, I’ll have more grounds than a national park.”

  The slam of the door put a very definite end to the discussion.

  MARC and Toffee stared dumbly at each other as the angry tap of Julie’s heels, retreating through the outer office, and down the stairs, sounded dimly back to them through the closed door. Toffee dropped limply into an upholstered chair and drew her feet up under her.

  “I just can’t understand it,” she said contentedly. “I just can’t understand how your mind could be so dull when your life is so exciting.”

  “Oh, my life is a perfect scream,” Marc smoldered. “Only I save up the good parts for when you’re around to enjoy them. They seem better that way.”

  “You’re sweet, Marc,” Toffee replied sincerely.

  Marc looked at her unbelievingly. “I just don’t know how it happened,” he said quietly. “Except for that hideous old crow out there in the main office, everything was perfectly tip-top this morning. Now, all of a sudden, my wife is suing me for divorce, my most important advertising copy is missing, and if I don’t find it by morning, my business is just as good as ruined. Where did it all start?” He dropped dejectedly into the chair behind his desk and rested his chin in his hand. Once again the room became silent.