“Geez!” the fellow breathed wonderingly. “She talks! I could hear her just as plain! She talks kinda mean, but she’s got a real nice voice.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Marc warned sourly, “She’ll talk to anyone. She’d even pass the time of day with Jack the Ripper if she had the chance.”
“Better than drunks,” Toffee commented dryly. “Don’t you like liquor?” the little man asked worriedly.
“Not from a distance. Please breathe out the window.”
Obediently, the fellow lurched toward the tiny cell window and perched his chin on its sill. “Like this?” he asked, anxious to please.
“Much obliged,” Toffee rewarded him. “That helps a little.” She turned anxiously to Marc. “How are we going to get out of here?” she asked.
“We wouldn’t be in here in the first place,” Marc lamented bitterly, “If that half-witted Herrigg hadn’t dropped us right into their laps.”
“I guess he thought you wanted to be near the telegraph office. It’s just our luck that the jail turned up right next door,” Her expression became deeply thoughtful. “Do you think he can really do what he says?”
“How should I know? But I do think we’re likely to find out. Even if I manage to get out of here in time, no one will ever believe me. I wouldn’t believe it myself. What was down in the laboratory?”
“Oh, nothing much. The usual collection of miscellaneous wires and wheels and tubes. There was just one thing, though. You remember that lighting gadget in the upper room?”
Marc nodded that he remembered. “Well, there was another of those downstairs, only larger and nearer the floor. I walked right into one of those white beams that hold it up.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing really,” Toffee went on. “The ball stopped turning. I guess it would have fallen if I’d broken the beam entirely. When I stepped out, it started revolving again, just as before, only in the opposite direction. That’s when that pie-faced gorilla grabbed me.”
It wasn’t much of a revelation; it didn’t leave much room for discussion, and at its conclusion the little cell block became very quiet. The heavy, dewy breathing of the little drunk gave the atmosphere a sort of sad, sighing quality. It was Toffee who finally put an end to it.
“Oh,” she said. “I forgot something.”
“Huh?” Marc grunted.
“I forgot something,” Toffee repeated, and immodestly she thrust a searching finger into the upper portion of her brief costume. She looked like a distressed woman who had falsified her figure only to discover that certain attachments, in spite of their manufacturer’s claims, are not always trustworthy. It was a moment of breathless suspense.
“Stop that!” Marc yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I found something in the laboratory,” Toffee said, her curious search leading her into a series of writhing motions of a very suggestive nature. “I put it away for safe keeping.”
“In . . . in your . . .?”
“Yes,” Toffee answered quickly. “After all, I don’t have any pockets, you know.”
“What was it?”
“Something small and white . . . and cold, at first,” Toffee panted, snappily shifting hips. “A capsule?” Marc yelled.
“What’s a capsule?” Toffee gasped impatiently. “Don’t bother me with silly questions at a time like this. I know the thing is here somewhere.”
THE drunk turned eagerly away from the window. His eyes became brilliantly alight, and a grin of sheerest delight spread over his face.
“Turn on the blue lights!” he chortled, then followed the exclamation with an offensively shrill whistle.
“Keep your low notions to yourself,” Toffee snapped, pushing back a mop of red hair that had fallen rakishly over one eye. “Things are bad enough without you getting smutty about it all. I’m only looking for something.”
“Ain’t nothing missing that I can see,” the drunk giggled.
“Hit him Marc!” Toffee yelled. “Smack that evil-minded little ogre!”
“Can’t you get along without all that squirming?” Marc pleaded. “Where’s your sense of modesty?”
“I don’t know,” Toffee returned. “But wherever it is, bet it’s getting a darned good jolting around.”
Then suddenly the performance stopped.
“It’s no use,” Toffee said. “I’ve got this thing on too tight, and the thing’s hiding where I can’t get at it. I’ll have to loosen things up a bit.”
“Lord love me!” gasped the evil minded little ogre. “If she loosens up much more, she’ll be spread out like a picnic lunch.”
“Slug him, Marc!”
“We’ll close our eyes,” Marc compromised. “I’ll keep my hand over his.”
“All right,” Toffee agreed, “but if the dirty little devil tries to peek, hammer him down to the floor! Cut him off at the ankles!”
With Marc’s promise that the evil-minded little ogre, more recently a nasty little devil, should be served in his prime in case of peeking, the loosening up proceeded in good order. Turning her back, and bending over, Toffee began to shake her shapely torso in a manner that vividly recalled the palmier days of Gilda Grey. It was in this provocative moment that George, the ancient keeper of the keys, stirred by the sound of loud voices, hove onto the scene. Stopping short at the first glimpse of the quaking Toffee, he flushed a deep crimson and turned his faded eyes modestly away.
“You gotta stop that, lady,” he whimpered. “It ain’t decent, and this is a respectable jail. The sheriff don’t like that sort of thing goin’ on here.”
“Go away!” Toffee yelled distractedly, clutching wildly at her dress. “Get out of here!”
“I ain’t gonna leave ’til you promise not to do that any more. It ain’t nice.” He pointed to Marc and the drunk, still standing starkly still, their eyes clamped determinedly shut. “Just look what you’re doin’ to them poor boys over there, lady. You ain’t getting nowhere with them. Their eyes is shut. And look at the big one helpin’ the little one to keep from lookin’ out.”
“Yes!” Toffee exclaimed hotly. “I had to practically threaten those ‘poor boys’ with disfigurement to get them to do it! Now, you get out of here before I start whooping it up all over the lot. I’ll tell people you made improper advances.”
Instantly, George’s face exchanged its embarrassed redness for a terrified pallor. He knew when he was licked, He turned and fled from the room.
“I’m goin’ to call the sheriff,” he threatened distantly. “He’s goin’ to be awful mad when he learns what’s goin’ on.”
Unconcernedly, Toffee continued her startling operations just where she’d left off. Almost immediately a small, white pellet appeared at her feet. Hastily, she readjusted her appropriated draperies and picked it up.
“I’ve got it!” she called, and the distraught statues in the opposite cell immediately came to life.
“Let’s see it!” Marc yelled excitedly.
“Just a minute,” Toffee replied. “Wait ’til I get it open. I want to see what’s inside.”
“Don’t!” Marc screamed. “It’ll blow up! Throw it over here, to me.”
“Oh, all right,” Toffee agreed reluctantly. “Here it comes.”
Like a bullet dispelled from a gun that was anxious to be rid of its burden, the capsule shot across the aisle, and in spite of Marc’s frantic clutching gestures, cracked sharply against an unrelenting iron bar. Then, it dropped back, into the center of the passage.
Marc turned dazedly to Toffee, opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. The tiny jail was suddenly all smoke, flame and blackness, more or less in that order, and its surprised inmates were suffering the eerie sensation of having the floor treacherously snatched from beneath their very feet.
ELEVATING his nose from it’s uncomfortable position astride a cold, iron bar, Marc glanced unbelieving at the devastation about him. The jail was a shattered shambles, and well ventilated
in the extreme. Here and there, ghostly pockets of smoke were arising slowly through beams of moonlight. Somewhere behind him, there was the sound of an iron door being flung aside, and sitting up, he looked around.
“Damn!” Toffee said with elegant profanity. “My dress is a mess.”
“The jail hasn’t been improved much, either,” Marc observed. “You hurt?”
“Of course not!” Toffee said, obviously surprised that anyone should ever think of her as anything but indestructible. “I’m still intact.”
A dreadful moaning sounded from deep under a pile of debris, and Toffee turned, stepped over the door that was hanging undecidedly by a single bent hinge, and leaned forward in a listening attitude.
“What is it?” Marc asked. “It sounds like a lost soul.”
“It is,” Toffee said. “It’s your drunken cell mate. He’s giving voice.”
“I wish he wouldn’t be so damned generous with it. He’s fairly lavishing voice.”
“Must be down pretty deep,” Toffee mused. “We can’t leave him there.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Toffee replied uncertainly, “But I’m pretty certain it isn’t just the thing to do.” She started in the general direction of the noise. “Take heart!” she called. “We’re coming!”
“Don’t bother!” the voice called back weakly. “It’s not very nice down here. You wouldn’t like it at all. Just pass down a bottle and go away.”
When the last armful of bars had finally been cast melodiously aside, and the little man freed, he regarded Marc levelly, without thanks.
“You didn’t have to hit me,” he said reproachfully. “I didn’t peek much.”
“We blew up!” Toffee explained proudly. She waved an arm significantly at a sizable hole in the wall. The fact that the ceiling was almost entirely gone seemed to escape her notice. “Let’s go!”
The drunk, an amiable soul, even if a lost one, accepted the explanation without question and smiled agreeably.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s take my car and go somewhere. There’s some liquor left in it I think.” He turned to Marc apologetically, “No offense, old man?”
“None at all,” Marc replied absently.
The fellow extended his hand formally and said, “I’m Harold Jenks. Harold J. Jenks, the plumber.”
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Jenks,” Marc said impatiently, anxious to be going. “My name is Dracula. This is my girl friend, Mad Agnes.”
“Please to meet you, Mr. Dracula,” Harold said with careful politeness.
“Heaven help me!” Marc exclaimed desperately. “Let’s get out of here!”
And like three spectors, freshly risen from the grave, they filed silently out into the cool quietness of the night. Toffee looked back sadly.
“It wasn’t such a bad little jail,” she said with becoming sentiment.
“No, it wasn’t,” Harold agreed thickly. “I’ve been in a lot worse.”
MARC at the wheel, the delivery truck sped down the silvery, moonlit highway, heralding to a slumbering countryside that the services of Harold J. Jenks could be obtained by the very simple operation of calling 23-J. This lie was blatantly blazoned on the side of the vehicle in impressive gilt letters. As for Harold J. Jenks, himself, far from standing ready to rush to the aid of housewives in moist distress, he was, at the moment, behind those very letters in the company of Toffee and an assortment of suspicious looking bottles, and caroling at the top of his lungs. The two of them, joined together in absolute discord, were engaged in a frightful recital of bawdy ballads, each new selection seeming to rival its forerunner for sheer obscenity. Marc, long since giving up any hope of restraining this wild party, tried merely not to listen to it. And things might have gone on in this disquieting fashion all night if the truck hadn’t unexpectedly coughed, sputtered, then lavished its last gasp on an asthmatic halt.
“What’s the matter?” Toffee asked, dropping out of the current vocal massacre long enough to peer owlishly over the back of the seat. “Why stop?”
“We’re out of gas,” Marc replied. And it was a curse.
“Where are we?” Harold muttered weakly from the darker reaches of the merchandise compartment. “Is there any liquor nearby?”
Mare thrust his head out of the window, then drew it slowly back. “We’re opposite the beach house,” he replied disgustedly, “right where we started.”
“Is there any liquor there?” Harold asked. “We’re running low.”
“Don’t I know it!” Marc growled peevishly. “They don’t run any lower than you two. At least you could have told me we needed gas. The sheriff will be catching up with us any minute now, and he’ll probably string us up this time. He might forgive a little murder, but blowing up his jail is a serious matter.”
Harold lapsed unconcernedly into discordant melody once more, but this time he was not joined by Toffee.
“We’d better get out of here,” she said. “Let’s hide in the house.”
“We can’t go there. It’s full of cops.”
“Well, at least we can hide in the woods.”
“We’ll have to,” Marc nodded. “Drag that answer to a distiller’s prayer out of there and let’s go. I think those lights back there on the bend belong to the sheriff’s car.”
WHEN they were safely in the woods, and Harold had been persuaded that his future would be more secure without melodic profanity . . . even a rendition of “The Old Pine Tree,” especially suited to the occasion . . . Marc turned his attention to the road. The sheriff’s car was already beside the delivery truck.
“What are they doing?” Toffee hissed. “Searching the truck.”
“Won’t do ’em any good,” Harold chuckled softly. “There isn’t any more liquor in it.”
“They’re leaving now,” Marc called back. “They’re headed for the house. I guess they think we’re up there.”
“Good,” said Toffee. “That gives us more time, anyway.”
“More time for what?” Marc asked, turning toward her and slumping dejectedly against a tree. “What can we do out here in these woods?”
“I don’t know,” Toffee said reflectively. “But I feel something in the back of your subconscious that’s trying to break through. If I just concentrate a minute, I may get it. It has some- thing to do with these woods, I think. Try to make your mind a blank. That’ll help a lot in establishing a contact. I could knock you out,” she suggested, “and return there.”
“I’ll just make my mind a blank,” Marc answered hastily.
And for a time a heavy silence fell over the trio.
“Are these pine trees?” Toffee asked finally, breaking the quiet.
“Good grief!” Marc groaned. “I concentrate myself almost into a coma to make my mind a blank for you, and all you do is wonder about the scenery.”
“No, no,” Toffee said, fluttering a hand delicately. “That’s what I got from your subconscious; a memory of the scent of pines . . . if that’s what they are. You smelled them when you were blindfolded . . . the first time.”
“I don’t remember it.”
“Of course you don’t. You were too busy thinking about other things with your conscious mind. But your subconscious recorded it, and it’s still there. It was after Dr. Herrigg stopped the car and we all got out.”
“But we walked for half an hour after that.”
“I know. But at least we know where we started from. The memory was very strong when we came into these woods. We must have been just about here. The atmosphere is identical. There was also the sound of the sea. We walked away from it. Where would you be if you walked half an hour straight into these woods?”
“At a swamp clearing. But there isn’t anything there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. It’s part of my property.”
“There’s something else,” Toffee said slowly. “We heard the ocean again, just before we arrived at Herrigg’s laboratory. So
we couldn’t have walked back into the woods. We must have gone somewhere else.”
“But we traveled straight ahead,” Marc objected. “We didn’t turn.”
“Are you sure this isn’t a peninsula? We might have walked across it.”
“No,” Marc said firmly. “We couldn’t have done that. The cliff juts out into the ocean, but it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to cross it.”
“I know what happened!” Toffee cried. “We did turn! We never stopped turning. We walked in a circle through these very woods. Even people who aren’t blindfolded often walk in circles when they think they’re going straight. At least they do in forests. Herrigg was purposely throwing us off the track!”
“I think you are right!” Marc exclaimed enthusiastically. “Maybe we’ll stop Herrigg yet!” Then the excitement suddenly died from his voice. “But if we traveled in a circle,” he said, “we should be at Herrigg’s place now. There’s nothing near here but the beach house.”
“But we were closer to the ocean than this,” Toffee argued. “We were right next to it.”
“The beach?”
“I don’t think so,” Toffee reflected. “We went downward, but not on a wooden stairway. It must have been on the other side of the cliff.”
“But we couldn’t have gone down there. It’s a sheer drop.”
“But we did,” Toffee insisted. “We were inside or under that cliff. I’m dead sure of it. At least we can’t lose anything by looking.”
“Nothing but our lives,” Marc commented dryly. “And as things stand, that’s next to nothing.” He crossed to Harold, who was currently drowsing, and grasped him by the shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Harold opened one doggy eye and gazed up hopefully. “We going to get some grog?” he asked foggily.
MARC stopped and looked back over his shoulder. From where the three of them were standing in the sloping tunnel, he could not see the entrance, but the faint, luminous glow of reflected moonlight marked its probable location. Also, it gave the passage an eerie, under-water appearance.
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 13
