“This,” he said with battered dignity, “is a citadel of science.”
“This,” Toffee corrected ruthlessly, “is as nutty as a peanut stand at a county fair.”
“And yet, there may be things here that will interest you intensely.”
Toffee turned briefly to Marc. “I don’t like the way he said that.”
Apparently, the statement hadn’t struck just the right note with Marc, either. He’d already turned to the little man. “Now, look here Dr. Herrigg ...”
“Miss Logan told you my name?”
“Miss Logan?”
“The deceased Miss Logan,” the doctor elaborated.
“. . . Whose body was planted in my closet,” Marc completed angrily.
“That was a shame,” the doctor sighed. “I’m truly sorry about all that, but it did seem the only thing to do at the time. I couldn’t find you on the beach, so I had to make some hasty readjustments. You had to be gotten out of the way, and the woman’s body had to be disposed of. What could be better than turning the whole problem over to the police? It all dove-tailed beautifully. After all, I have a very good reason for not wanting the police curious about my whereabouts.”
“Just off hand,” Marc said sourly, “I can’t, think of a better reason than murder. They’re so apt to be highhanded about the thing.”
“Exactly,” the doctor agreed.
Toffee gazed disappointedly at the doctor’s slight figure.
“Killers, nowadays,” she murmured unhappily, “just aren’t what they used to be. Maybe it’s the shortages.”
The doctor’s eyes were heavy with exasperation as they turned toward her. “I do wish you weren’t so preoccupied with murder,” he said tiredly.
“You mean you’re not?” Toffee returned quickly.
“Certainly not. I wouldn’t have killed Mr. Epperson and Miss Logan if they hadn’t forced me to. They got to prying into my private affairs, and I had to put an end to it somehow.”
“The method seems a little extreme,” Toffee pointed out. “A good, old-fashioned talking-to might have been simpler . . . or were you afraid of hurting their feelings?”
The doctor waved an impatient hand through the air.
“They were only laboratory assistants and they insisted on knowing what I was working on. So I simply obliged them. I contrived to leave a couple of capsules where they would be sure to find them. I was certain they’d both be destroyed by the blast, but that fool woman . . . she never did do anything right . . . got outside the radius of vaporization. Naturally, I had to shoot her.”
“Oh, naturally,” Toffee broke in. “Anyone silly enough to get outside a perfectly good radius of vaporization deserves to be shot. I see what you mean.
“If you must speak,” the doctor said scornfully, “try to say something intelligent.”
“Give me time,” was Toffee’s bland reply, “and I’ll build up a really good insult for you.”
“But we were talking of other things,” the doctor said loftily, wagging a finger toward a group of chairs before his desk. “You’d better sit down.”
HESITANTLY, Marc and Toffee accepted the invitation. Toffee crossed one lovely leg over the other and regarded it bleakly. Obviously, she thought it a waste in such scientific surroundings. Her determined belief in the idea that sex, if just given half the chance, could surmount any obstacle, seemed in grave peril of disproof. It was the first time that her faith in herself had ever been shaken, and it was not a nice feeling. She scowled at the doctor, who quickly averted his eyes. He sat down at the desk, dropped the gun on its glistening surface.
“And now,” he said, shifting his attention to Marc, “I think we’d better get to the point of your visit. And just to relieve your minds, tell you that you are not to be killed.”
Toffee brightened.
“No,” the doctor continued, “You were brought here, Mr. Pillsworth, because you are one of America’s most influential advertising men. As such, you can be of use to me.” He smiled wryly. “I didn’t know of your profession when I placed Miss Logan in your home and knocked you out.”
“You have something to advertise?” Marc asked evenly. “Don’t tell me you’re reopening Murder Incorporated under new Management.”
“No,” the doctor smiled. “But I’ve something to advertise just the same . . . a button.”
“A button?” Marc and Toffee chorused unmusically.
The doctor smiled at their surprise. “This button,” he said, and he pointed to a smooth white disc set into the corner of his desk ... an ordinary push button.
Toffee and Marc exchanged glances. Both asked questions. Neither received answers.
“I once had a plan,” the doctor continued dreamily, “and I worked for years to perfect a bomb . . . a curious sort of bomb. It was to be charged with infectuous bacteria, and it could be hurled into the regions high above the earth by catapult. The result would have polluted the very heavens. All the rainfall thereafter, and eventually all the water supplies of the world would have become deadly to human life. Everyone would have died. It would have been ghastly . . . a magnificent triumph of science.” He shrugged philosophically. “I never did get it perfected.”
“Thank heaven!” Marc murmured.
The doctor smiled again, more broadly. “So I worked out something else.”
“Eh?”
“Oh my, yes. Only this time I haven’t failed. You remember what happened to the rock and Mr. Epperson down on the beach, Mr. Pills-worth?”
Marc nodded dumbly.
“Wouldn’t it be dreadful if such a thing happened to the world? Wouldn’t it be terrible if the whole world suddenly burst apart and became nothing more than a fleeting vaporous body in the universe?”
“What’s he talking about?” Toffee asked frightenedly.
“I’m talking about the button,” the doctor said. “Would you believe it, if I told you that I could achieve such a disaster simply by pressing that button? It would all be over in less than a second.”
A HEAVY silence crashed into the room and throbbed as quietly as a battery of kettle drums in full cry, pounding on the nerves like a trip hammer. Finally, when Marc spoke, it was only to force it back by the sheer force of his voice.
“I . . . I don’t believe it,” he faltered.
“Are you forgetting what happened on the beach?” the doctor asked. “And besides, it doesn’t matter whether you believe or disbelieve it. The point is that you are going to tell the world about it. You’re going to sell the world that button for a very nice price . . . its freedom. Either things will be done my way in this world from now on, or there’ll be no world. I’m simply giving you the biggest advertising assignment of all time. You’re a lucky man, Mr. Pillsworth. I shall rule the world and you shall be my spokesman.”
“I . . . I don’t believe it,” Marc repeated doggedly. “You’re lying.”
“I’ve told you that you don’t have to believe it,” the doctor went on triumphantly. “However, one fact remains; if I do not receive, by radio, assurances from the governments of the world, beginning within the next twenty-four hours, that they will hold all resources and manpower at my disposal, pending my wishes, I shall not hesitate to press the button. And please believe me, I have enough charged material ready that it won’t leave even so much as a memory.”
“Twenty-four hours!” Marc gasped.
“Mr. Pillsworth!” the doctor exclaimed. “I know your resources! And I’ve waited a long time for this! The fate of the world rests in your hands!”
“Yes,” Toffee put in derisively. “The doctor has a right to a little fun after working so hard for so long. Don’t be a kill-joy, Marc.”
“But I’ll be arrested for murder, the minute I show myself,” Marc protested. “And who’d believe any of this, anyway? What about that?”
“Those,” the doctor said wearily, spreading his long hands before him, “are your problems. I’m sure you’ll find a solution to them.”
“Hands up!” she announced dramatically. “Turn it around!” Marc yelled. “You’re sticking yourself up!”
“If you press that trigger,” the doctor said calmly, “I’ll press this button.” His hand was already moving across the desk.
Marc swung quickly out of his chair, but overlooked the fact that one foot was still twisted nervously around a metallic leg. It was a disastrous oversight. The tardy foot, working in stiff opposition to his urgent forward movement, he sprawled awkwardly in midair, then came down, head-first, on the gleaming floor. Coming to haphazard rest, he rolled over, grinned foolishly, and closed his eyes in involuntary slumber. He was out like a cat at night.
The minute Marc’s eyes closed, the gun skittered chatteringly across the floor. Toffee couldn’t have held it any longer, if she’d wanted to. She’d vanished into thin air.
Dr. Herrigg stared bewilderedly at an area which, to his scientific mind, had no right to be vacant. A moment ago it had been occupied by a highly disconcerting young lady with red hair. Now, it was as empty as a rejected lover’s heart. He passed a hand over his eyes, then looked again. It was still empty.
SOMETHING cool and damp struck Marc across the face, and he opened his eyes to find the doctor peering anxiously down at him, a cloth in his hand.
“Where is the girl?” he demanded.
Marc sat up and stared at him blankly, wondering the same thing. Toffee should be materialized, now that he was conscious again.
“I don’t know. You haven’t done anything to her?”
“Of course not. She was right here when you fell. • She simply vanished.”
“She must have sneaked out during the confusion,” Marc said, thinking that what the doctor didn’t know wouldn’t hurt either of them. It was his own opinion that Toffee had materialized elsewhere and gone for help.
“But that’s impossible! This place is locked electrically.”
“In her way,” Marc replied smilingly, “Toffee is rather scientific herself.”
“Well, my men will catch her before she goes very far,” the doctor said a bit more calmly. “She won’t be able to get away.”
“Your men?”
“Oh, I have quite a staff here.”
“How do you keep them? Surely they don’t approve of what you’re doing?”
“They were brought here just as you were. They think they’re on a very secret mission for the government, and remain as voluntary prisoners.”
There was a soft, whirring sound and they both turned toward the slit-like door opposite the one through which they had come earlier. Swiftly, the metal panel shot upward to reveal a disheveled Toffee, squirming in the tremendous clutches of a large, muscular young man, whose face bore the bloody handiwork of her long, sharp fingernails. Toffee’s face bore only the marks of outrage.
“Get those clammy hands off me?” she shrieked, “or I’ll scratch that nasty face of yours right out of existence!”
“You already have, lady,” the young man returned peevishly. “You’ve probably ruined it forever.”
“I’ve done you a service then!” Toffee barked. “You should be glad to be rid of the ugly thing.”
“Aw, lady,” the fellow protested. “Is that any way to talk?”
“It’s one way,” Toffee retorted; and apparently anxious to have an end to the matter, she silently delivered a jabbing blow to the young man’s stomach.
“Oof!” was her victim’s singular comment, and he immediately released her to clutch at the damaged section.
Toffee pivoted and strode into the room with queenly elegance.
“That,” she announced with emphasis, “is no gentleman.”
The doctor looked at her and smiled. “Apparently you got the wrong door,” he said. “Do you like my laboratory?”
“It looked like a bathroom to me,” Toffee snapped. “And don’t rub it in, atom brain. If I’d got out the other way, you’d be plenty washed up by the time I got through with you. Make no mistake about that!”
“But you didn’t,” the doctor grinned, then turned to Marc. “Now that the young lady has been recovered, and no harm done, I imagine you’re anxious to get to your work? We’ve already wasted nearly an hour.”
Marc nodded, anxious to be away from the place at any cost.
“I’ll have to ask you to replace your blindfolds,” the doctor said smoothly. “It’s of prime importance that you do not know where this place is located. I wouldn’t like to see you leading the police back here.”
While the business with the blindfolds was being transacted, the forgotten young man at the door seemed to recover his vagrant breath. He straightened up and glared at Toffee.
“And you ain’t no lady, either” he proclaimed spitefully.
Toffee clawed the air blindly.
“Lead me to him!” she wailed. “Just lead me to him!”
SHERIFF MILLER looked grieved. His expression was the one of a man who had been tried beyond endurance. His eyes, as though seeking escape, darted to the darkened window, then back to the disordered couple standing before him. He tried vainly to resist a feeling that the atmosphere in the little office had gotten too heavy for the structure’s thin walls. Somewhere, somehow, something would have to give way soon. And it seemed, to him, that his sanity stood a good chance of being the first to go . . . if it hadn’t already.
“Now, let’s have that again,” he drawled, dragging his reluctant eyes back to Marc and Toffee.
“We were kidnapped,” Marc began. “. . . by the man who’s . . .” Toffee continued impatiently
The sheriff’s hand moved for silence more swiftly than either of them had supposed it could. His eyes moved beseechingly toward the ceiling. His lips murmured a silent prayer . . . or curse.
“I know! I know!” he groaned. “By the man who’s goin’ to blow up the whole ding blasted world! You ain’t said a word about nothin’ else since my deputies come draggin’ you in here. And if I have to listen to any more about it, I’m going to throw you two in jail and have the key melted down for a watch fob! It is the craziest thing I ever heard of in all my whole natural life.”
“Natural life?” Toffee exclaimed acidly. “He calls life with a face like that natural! If that’s nature, I’ll take tobasco!”
“What’s the matter with my face?” the sheriff asked belligerently.
“What isn’t! Just look at that motheaten mustache!”
“Stop that!” Marc put in crisply. “We haven’t time to haggle over the sheriff’s mustache! We’ve only got twenty-two hours left!”
Injured at having been brought to account by his own prisoner, the sheriff riled vengeful eyes on Marc.
“You’re in here fer murder!” he snapped.
“I’ve got to get to a telephone!” Marc pleaded desperately.
“If you think you’re goin’ to make me think you’re crazy so’s you can plead insanity,” the sheriff snorted, “you’re ... you’re ... crazy!”
“Make up your mind, Sheriff,” Toffee said demurely.
“Why did you kill ’er?” the sheriff thundered suddenly, leering at Marc.
“I didn’t.”
“Her body with in your closet!”
“So was yours,” Toffee giggled.
The sheriff shuddered and passed a moist hand over an equally moist face, leaving both face and mustache matchingly droopy. He gazed smoldering at Toffee for a moment, then turned his attention resolutely to Marc.
“If you didn�
��t kill ’er, who did?”
“Dr. Herrigg.”
“. . . the man who’s going to blow up the world,” Toffee elaborated innocently.
The sheriff’s huge hand came down thunderingly on the desk.
“That rips ’er!” he screamed. “That cops the cast iron feather duster!” He turned excitedly to one side. “George! George!”
A small, musty rustic emerged from the shadows and shuffled to the sheriff’s side. “Yep, Mort?” he queried sadly. “What’s up?”
“They are!” the sheriff thundered, pointing a long, gnarled finger dramatically at the captives. “Up fer life, I hope! Lock ’em up. Get ’em out of my sight afore I throttle the both of ’em with my own bare hands!”
George cast baleful, faded eyes at his two charges and nodded toward a door at the rear of the room. “Come along peaceable,” he quavered. “The man’ll have to bunk in with the drunk in number one,” He looked at Toffee with a smile that was only a ghost of itself. “You can have a cell all to yourself, miss. We’ve got two.”
Toffee cast a hopeful glance toward the street door, but instead of finding a possible path to freedom, it encountered only what appeared to be a solid wall of gaying mouths and goggling eyes. The villagers, currently looking like an assortment of strangling guppies in an over-crowded aquarium, had turned out to see the murderers; rare things in their quiet town. A low whistle issued from the staring group as Toffee moved into full view.
“Sure hot out tonight, ain’t it?” a rural humorist commented sweetly, turning away.
MARC watched dolefully as the drunk, a dapper little man, bearing the mark of elegance in distress . . . and alcoholism in over-abundance . . . tottered uncertainly across the cell and clung eagerly to the bars. Blinking, he peered at Toffee in the opposite cell. “My wife would kill me,” he murmured thickly. “Now I’m seein’ redheaded dames!”
Across the aisle, Toffee looked up quickly, the overhead light falling sharply across her vivid face. “Look out who you’re calling a dame!” she snapped, “You sodden little alcoholic. Why don’t you become anonymous?”
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 12
