“There’s a bundle of rags or something over here,” Toffee whispered presently. “Anyway, it’s soft. Come on over and sit down.”
Marc groped his way across the truck, found the bundle and sat down at Toffee’s side.
“Guess there’s nothing to do now,” he said, “but wait for the worst.”
“In the meantime,” Toffee said, “what are we going to do about this kiddie business? I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like it,” Marc sighed. “I don’t like it. And come to think of it, I don’t suppose my wife will go for it much either.”
“Ouch!” Toffee cried suddenly. “Stop it! This is no time for that sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?”
“You pinched me, you big little oaf, and you know it.”
“I haven’t layed a hand on you,” Marc said. “In your present condition, why should I? You flatter yourself.”
“Oh yeah?” Toffee said. “I’ve heard about nasty little boys who run around pinching little girls. If you do it again . ..”
FROM outside there was the sound of approaching footsteps. They moved to the rear of the truck and suddenly the door handles began to rattle. Then they stopped, and a voice called out, “Not in here. All locked up.” The footsteps moved away, into the distance.
“Anyway,” Toffee said, getting back to the matter of the pinchings, “you keep your offensive little paws to yourself from now on or I’ll snap them off.”
“You back on that?” Marc asked wearily. “Even in childhood you’re dirty-minded, aren’t you? One would think that . . . Ow! Of all the spiteful things to do!”
“What did I do?”
“As if you didn’t know, tubby,” Marc said nastily. “Pinching me behind my back. Literally!”
“I didn’t,” Toffee said. “Behind your back or anywhere else. I was too busy massaging my own...”
“Hissst!”
“Now what?” Marc asked.
“Hissst!”
“Stop that silly hisssting, will you?” Toffee said irritably. “You sound crazy. Probably look it, too.”
“Who’s hissting?” Marc asked. “I haven’t made a sound.”
“Hissst!”
Both of them were suddenly on their feet.
“Oh, mother!” Toffee moaned. “Snakes! We’re in a pit of snakes, Just listen to the beasts. They’re fairly lusting for us!”
“Moses!” Marc gasped. “We’ve been bitten and hissed at by snakes!”
They froze as the dark compartment suddenly came alive with heavy thumping sounds, intermingled with, “Hisst! Hisssst! Hissssst!”
“Pythons!” Toffee whinnied. And all but falling over herself, she lunged to the door and threw the catch.
“The cops!” Marc cried. “What about the cops? They’re still out there.”
“Right now,” Toffee said positively, “there is nothing I would love better than a big, tough cop. I’m going to fling myself on the very first one I see and never let go. I’m going to love that ugly cop like a mother.”
She threw the door open, and the compartment flooded with light. She was just about to jump to the ground when she glanced quickly back over her shoulder and stopped.
“Look!” she cried, pointing back into the compartment. “It’s human!”
For a moment they simply stared at the transformed bundle of rags. In the light it had suddenly developed a head, arms and legs. It was lying on its stomach with its face turned painfully toward them. A crude gag covered the lower half of its face and its hands were lashed behind its back, which probably explained the mysterious pinchings. The feet were bound together like the hands. It said, “Hisst!”
Marc and Toffee ran to it. They knelt beside it, and Marc untied the gag. A small hawklike face peered up at them. “Culpepper!” Marc gasped. He turned to Toffee. “It’s a snake after all.”
The little man sighed with relief. “Hurry and untie me,” he said. “They’ll kill me.”
“And I’ll help them,” Marc said. The little man blinked. “How’s that?” he asked.
“I’m Pillsworth,” Marc said. “Look at me.”
“Ah, yes,” the little man said. “Mr. Pillsworth’s son. I see the resemblance, though your mother must have been an exceptionally large-eared woman. Untie me, sonny, and . . .”
MARC choked. “Don’t sonny me, you degenerate genius,” he grated. “I’m Marc Pillsworth, the Marc Pillsworth you were chattering to death in his office a little while ago, the Marc Pillsworth who used to be over six feet tall, so that his ears didn’t look so big . . . that’s the Marc Pillsworth I am, butter brain. I took a couple of your pills. Look at me, you monster!”
“What!” The little man struggled to sit up under his bonds. “You what!”
“Took a couple of your pills. And frankly, Mr. Culpepper, I am not satisfied with the results. I want my money ba . . . I mean, you’ve got to get us out of this. My wife isn’t going to understand.”
“Us?” the little man asked. He glanced at Toffee. “Her, too?”
Marc nodded. “You’d better whip out an antidote or I’ll turn you over to whoever is trying to kill you before you can say corpus delicti. I’ll even loan them my old blunderbuss which is guaranteed to blast a hole a foot deep in a wall of solid concrete.”
“An antidote?” the little man said. “I don’t have one. I’ve been working on one, but I haven’t thought it out completely yet. If you’ll just get me out of here, I promise to do what I can.”
“Untie him,” Toffee said, already grappling with the ropes round his ankles. “Hurry.”
Marc nodded and set to work on Mr. Culpepper’s wrists. “Who’s trying to kill you?” he asked.
“Mr. and Mrs. Harper,” the little man said. “They want my formula for Fixage. I met them down in the Marlborough district. It’s a pretty bad neighborhood. My laboratory is down there in an old building, I couldn’t afford anything better. Anyway, I met these people one night. I guess I was drinking a little too much . . . and I told them about Fixage and how I was going to make a fortune with it. They were quite impressed. Ah, my dear, that feels good. My feet had nearly gone to sleep.”
“Go on,” Marc said. “What about the Harpers?”
“Well, I could tell they’d had plastic surgery done on their faces, and I guess I should have suspected them right away. Illegal treatment, you know, thrives down in that part of town. I think maybe they’ve escaped from the penitentiary or something, but there’s no way of identifying them. They broke into my laboratory several times, but I didn’t know who it was until now. They’re planning to steal my formula and kill me and say they invented Fixage themselves. They followed me here today somehow and grabbed me when I came out.”
“Where are they now?”
“They saw me carrying a brief case into the building and they think I’ve hidden it in there. They’ve gone back to look for it.”
“Where is it?” Marc asked.
The little man chuckled. “In the men’s room,” he said. “I forgot and left it. They’ll never find it there.”
“Good night!” Marc said. “Someone else might. Is the formula in it?”
“Oh, no,” the little man said. “There’s nothing in it but my dirty laundry. I never put my experiments on paper.”
“Where is the formula?”
Mr. Culpepper smiled. “In my head,” he said. “I work everything out in my head. I just go into a kind of trance and things start coming to me. I don’t really need a laboratory at all but it makes a better impression to have one. I just go down there and cook up a pot of coffee once in a while for the sake of appearances.”
At last Marc unraveled the snarl of knots about the little man’s wrists. “There you are,” he said. “Let’s go.”
HE PROCEEDED to the door of the truck and peeked out. Memphis and the policeman were at a safe distance and seemed too involved in a heated argument to notice anything else. Marc lowered himself to the ground and turned back,
holding out his arms. “Here, I’ll help you down,” he said to Toffee. “Just give me your . . .”
“Now isn’t that obliging?” a man’s voice said smoothly behind him. “The little tyke’s put his hands up without even being told. Good training will tell every time, Agatha, I’ve always said it.”
Something cold and round nuzzled Marc’s spine with unrequited affection.
“He shows splendid manners,” a woman’s voice returned, “for one so young.”
Just then Toffee appeared in the doorway. “Oh, my gosh!” she said.
Behind Marc, both holding pistols in gloved hands, were a man and woman of truly stunning elegance. The man was tall and straight and beautifully tailored . . . a gentleman down to the last hand-woven thread. The woman at his side was dark and svelte, and her soft grey suit was so Parisian that her figure was plainly speaking French beneath it. Both of these prepossessing creatures were graced with extraordinary handsome faces. Faint scars whispered the truth; something other than nature had worked these perfections.
“Mr. and Mrs. Harper, I presume?” Toffee drawled, eyeing the guns. “I’m sorry I didn’t expect to meet you folks or I’d have fixed up a bit. I must look a mess without my diamond tiara and tommy gun.”
The woman eyed Toffee with disdain. “What an offensive child,” she murmured. Her words were clipped and exaggeratedly European. “Really, Chadwick, if she keeps on like this, I’m afraid I’ll be tempted to do her in.”
Chadwick regarded Marc and Toffee with dulled eyes. “It’s a sad thing,” he said morosely, “when we have to deal with such low types.”
“Ah, yes,” Agatha replied. “It’s a situation that needs mending when we are forced to waste our talents on mere moppets. However . . .” she shrugged philosophically “. . . things will be better when we’ve gotten the old man’s formula. I wonder how they came here?”
“Search me, love.”
“Don’t ever say that,” Agatha warned “Someone might take you up on it.”
“S’pose you’re right,” Chadwick mused. He jostled his gun in Marc’s back. “There’s a good lad,” he said. “Let’s hop back in there.”
Marc hopped and found himself once more in the more comforting company of Toffee and Mr. Culpepper.”
“The Harpers,” Mr. Culpepper explained wryly, “are charming people.”
“Yes,” Toffee said. “Charming, like an emerald-studded hand grenade.”
“Culpepper’s come untied,” Chadwick said outside. “I suppose you’d better ride with them and keep them covered whilst I drive.”
“What a bother,” the woman lamented. “Oh, well, hand me up.” Chadwick lifted Agatha to the compartment and she stepped lightly inside. Then he closed them in and took his place behind the wheel. The removable panel at the front of the truck slid down and he turned toward them. “What will we ever do with them, Aggie?” he asked.
“The children?” Agatha said. “Oh, don’t know, dear. Dispose of them in the usual manner, I suppose.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Chadwick said. “Only it really doesn’t seem quite proper, you know, their being children and all, I mean.”
“But they’re not very pretty children,” Agatha replied. “And after all, when you come right down to it, what are children except just ungrown people?”
“You may be right,” Chadwick mused. “Perhaps if we use small bullets . . .”
“I really think we should be getting on, don’t you?” Agatha broke in. “I observed several police persons at the end of the lot when we came out.”
“Right-ho,” Chadwick said.
“Police persons!” Toffee snorted. “Just listen! You’d think this was a garden party!”
AGATHA turned to her with a slow “Quite right,” she said. “Tea and bullets will be served directly. And remember, should we be stopped for any reason along the way, you and your little friend will act as our children. You’ll call Chadwick daddy and me mummy.” She pointed to Toffee. “You’re Gwendolyn and the boy is Horace. Mr. Culpepper is your uncle Ben. Understand?”
“Oh, yes,” Toffee said brightly, “We’re just one big stuffy family. Only if mummy drops her gun, Gwendolyn is going to kick the stuffing out of her, and don’t you forget it, sister.”
Agatha shuddered delicately. “Please,” she said. “Unless you watch your language a bit more closely I’m afraid I’ll have to wash your mouth out with cyanide.”
Toffee retired to a corner and sat down, folding her arms dispiritedly over her chest. “I wash my hands of this whole affair,” she mumbled. “This is the most boring stick-up I’ve ever been in.”
The occasion, thankfully, did not arise for Marc and Toffee to use their unlikely aliases. Uninterrupted, save by traffic lights, the black delivery truck made its way from the center of the city into an old commercial district of derelict buildings and littered streets. Chadwick turned the truck in at an alleyway and pulled to a stop behind an aging, disreputable-looking warehouse. He got out of the car long enough to open a pair of huge barnlike doors and returned to drive the vehicle inside. The little party alighted, and the newcomers were given a brief moment to inspect their surroundings before the doors were closed again, shutting out most of the light.
Bare rafters lay high above them and all the windows had been boarded over. Along the right hand wall a rickety stairway stretched upward to a kind of landing, the outer edge of which was lined with a mouldering railing. Beyond the railing a blank, unpainted wall offered several doors, probably entrances to subsidiary storerooms or offices. Whatever things of value the place had once protected it now harbored only dust and disuse.
“What a lovely little nest,” Toffee murmured. “It looks so died in.” She turned to Agatha. “With all this, you must feel just like a bird in a gilded cage. A vulture.”
“We do not live here,” Agatha returned distantly. “We felt, however, that it was more than sufficient for Mr. Culpepper until we were done with him. It will do for you and your little friend, too, now that you’re here.” She gestured toward the stairway with her gun. “Shall we go up?”
Marc and Toffee, with Mr. Culpepper between them, started up the stairs, and Agatha, Chadwick and their pistols followed. Under their tread the ancient boards screamed threateningly, and the sound echoed weirdly all around them.
“You know, Agatha,” Chadwick said suddenly, “just seeing these youngsters has made me rather thoughtful.”
“Indeed?” Agatha rejoined.
“Yes, quite.” A mellow tone had come into Chadwick’s voice. “I was wondering, dear, if it wouldn’t be rather nice if we had some children of our own. What do you think, eh?”
“I see no reason why we couldn’t,” Agatha said agreeably. “There are any number of really well-bred children roving the streets these days. There would be nothing to kidnapping a couple of the nicest.”
“No, no,” Chadwick said, “That’s not what I mean. I thought we might have some that were really our own.”
“How common!” Agatha exclaimed, truly shocked. “Really, Chadwick!”
“You’ve no sentiment, Aggie,” Chadwick said, a shade of reproach in his voice.
“Oh, really?” Agatha said. “I suppose you’ve forgotten when we were getting Freddie Freemont’s body ready to chuck in the channel? Wasn’t it I who wrote ‘Bon Voyage, Frederick’ in the cement before it dried? And very pretty it was, too, what with the writing wreathing his neck as it did.”
“That’s right,” Chadwick said. “That was quite sweet of you, Aggie.”
“I should think so,” Agatha said self-righteously. “I could just as easily have written ‘Fry in Hell’ as Bugsy Turner wanted me to. I was too sentimental, though.”
AT THE top of the stairs Agatha, the gushing sentimentalist, directed Marc, Toffee and Mr. Culpepper into the first room to their left, with a curt wave of her gun. Apparently the room had seen service as an office at one time, for there was a sort of teller’s window cut into the inner wall. There
was a larger window in the opposite wall, but since it was boarded up like all the others, it offered only a bare minimum of air and light. In the center of the room an old packing crate had been turned face down so as to provide a resting place for a silver tea service and several extremely potent looking bottles. A number of fruit boxes had been distributed around the room to serve as chairs, and the floor was generously littered with mashed out cigarettes.
When her guests were seated, Agatha stood back, studied them and frowned. “Oh, Chad,” she said. “They’re so ordinary!”
“There, there, Aggie,” Chadwick said, stroking her cheek affectionately with the nose of his gun. “In business you can’t always associate with the best. It’s all part of the game, you know.”
“Some game,” Toffee said sourly. “I could stage a better crime wave with a water pistol.”
Agatha swung on Toffee, eyes blazing. “You soiled little hoyden!” she fumed. “You should be honored. Chadwick and I were the most celebrated thieves in Europe before the war. We robbed kings, I’ll have you know. Our names were on aristocratic lips all through the continent.”
“What’s the matter?” Toffee said. “Did those aristocratic lips spit you out finally? Why didn’t you stay on the continent?”
“Don’t think we couldn’t have,” Agatha said with a little lift of her chin. “People were practically begging us to stay and rob them.” She sighed. “However, they were only putting up a front; they had nothing really worth robbing. They only wanted the social prestige that one of our robberies could give them. We were forced to come to America.” She made a wry face. “They’re all like you here; want a lot of shooting and uncouth language with their hold-ups. No appreciation for continental finesse. That’s why we’ve decided to take Mr. Culpepper’s formula. We’re going into business. It’s a shameful come-down, of course, but I suppose we’ll just have to make the best of it.”
“You poor, brave things,” Toffee said. “My nose fairly runs for you.”
“Oh!” Agatha exploded. “Little pig!”
“Big pig!” Toffee shot back.
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 30
