The Complete Adventures of Toffee
Page 32
“Hands up!” Toffee piped.
THE Harpers came to life in the same moment and reacted with their customary single-mindedness. Two pairs of hands shot into the air, and as a result the bottle crashed to the top of the desk, pills rolling in all directions. The desk and portions of the floor around the desk seemed to have been the scene of a recent snowstorm.
“I’ll keep them covered,” Toffee told Marc. “You get the police.”
“The police?” Marc said. “How will we explain who they are? With their new faces, I mean. For that matter, how will we explain who we are? The cops are looking for us, too, you know.”
“I see what you mean,” Toffee said thoughtfully. “It’s rather an impasse, isn’t it?” She turned to Mr. Culpepper who, roused by the sound of the shot, was now weaving his way toward them. “What about that antidote?” she asked him. “If whiskey’s supposed to restore us, heaven knows we’ve had whiskey aplenty.”
“Takes time,” the little man said thickly. “Mustn’t expect miracles, you know.”
“Oh, mustn’t I?” Toffee said with sudden heat. “You change me into a miserable little blob of flab and then you have the gall to tell me not to expect miracles. That’s a laugh . . . a fair howl.”
The little man chuckled. “It is rather humorous, isn’t it?” he said.
“I ought to kick in your bridgework,” Toffee said dully.
“You don’t like me,” Mr. Culpepper said with no particular expression. “You think I’m disgusting.”
“You think you’re kidding,” Toffee said. “You’ve just shown real insight.”
“Thank you,” the little man said gravely. “Sometimes I think . . .”
In a start of surprise he lurched to one side, grasping a chair for support. His eyes, like Agatha’s and Chadwick’s, were fastened on Marc and Toffee. Suddenly, the two erstwhile youngsters had begun to stretch upward like a pair of extending telescopes. They were growing and aging with the speed of lightning, it seemed. In a matter of seconds Marc became once again a tall, serious-eyed businessman . . . one that had unaccountably rolled up his trousers to go wading. At his side Toffee was again a scantily clad redhead ... a fine figure of a girl with a fine figure. The effect was impressive to say the least. The Harpers gasped in unison.
Toffee stretched out one of her exquisite legs and surveyed it with satisfaction. “Well, that’s more like it,” she said happily. “A girl can really get places with a pair of pins like that.”
“I told you!” Agatha shrieked. “I told you there was something funny about her. Only it isn’t funny!”
“Oh, Lord,” Chadwick murmured. “I’ve never seen anything so weird in all my life. How did they manage it?”
“Don’t ask me,” Agatha said unhappily. “I don’t like to even think about it.”
Marc had also stretched out a leg, but the sight of it seemed to give him no particular pleasure. Hastily, still holding his gun on Agatha and Chadwick, he reached out and rolled down his trousers.
“Well, thank heaven that’s over,” he sighed. “What a relief.”
“Hypnosis,” Chadwick said to Agatha. “That’s what it is. Either they hypnotized us into thinking they were children a while ago, or they’re hypnotizing us now to make us think they’re adults. I wonder which they really are?”
“I don’t care,” Agatha said with sudden disillusion. “I don’t care if they’re really a pair of Newfoundland puppies. I don’t care about anything anymore.”
“I told you,” Mr. Culpepper said to Toffee. “It worked like a charm. Now you don’t have to be sore at me any more.”
Toffee favored the little man with a radiant smile. “I could kiss you,” she said recklessly.
“Please do,” Mr. Culpepper said.
“Later,” Toffee said. “Much later.”
She turned to Marc. “The decks are clear. Call the cops. Let’s get rid of these regal rats.”
Marc nodded and retired to the telephone. “We can say they broke in here,” he said, “if all else fails.”
Toffee, in the meantime, had leveled her gun on the Harpers. “Turn-about is some fun, eh, kids?” she said. “And while we’re waiting for the cops, why don’t you tell us what really happened to the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels? Remember, anything you say will be used to hang you.”
Mr. Culpepper teetered to Toffee’s side. Screwing his face into what he fondly believed to be a romantic pucker, he lifted himself to his toes and growled, “Kiss me, baby,” a la Clark Gable. He wavered a moment and then fell forward.
IT MIGHT have been the perverse paw of destiny that sent the little man crashing against Toffee. Otherwise, the situation involving the Harpers, Mr. Culpepper and Fixage might easily have righted itself on the spot. The Harpers might have been carted off to the pokey in chains; Mr. Culpepper might have returned to his laboratory for a late pot of coffee; Fixage might have become an unpleasant memory, and Marc and Toffee might have been free to disport themselves in any way that pleased them. It might have happened that way. But it didn’t.
Under Mr. Culpepper’s sudden weight Toffee tottered a moment, then crumpled to the floor, dropping her gun. She showed splendid presence of mind in retrieving the gun swiftly enough to ward off any attack from the Harpers. But she wasn’t quick enough to prevent the enterprising twosome from scooping up handfuls of the scattered pills and greedily popping them into their mouths.
“Don’t!” Toffee screamed, leaping to her feet, “Spit them out!”
Agatha swallowed mightily and gasped for air. She laughed shortly. “Too late now,” she said triumphantly.
“You’ve no idea,” Toffee said. “If you did, you’d be courting a stomach pump with everything that’s in you.”
Marc slapped the telephone receiver back into place. “Good night,” he murmured, aghast. “Whole handfuls of the things!”
Chadwick managed to choke down his generous grabbings. “Well,” he said with satisfaction, “now we’ll see what’s what.”
“And probably a good deal more,” Toffee said. “If we can bear to look.” She glanced down at Mr. Culpepper who was still resting quietly on the floor. “What can we do about it?”
The little man shrugged, uninterested. “You cheated,” he mumbled. “You ducked.”
“We ought to do something right away,” Marc put in. “Maybe a stomach pump isn’t such a bad idea. In a minute it’ll be too late. There’s a ...”
It was already too late.
The Harpers had suddenly turned an unfortunate shade of whitish-green. They clutched at each other in a paroxism of agony, shuddering from head to toe. Then, seized by a rending spasm that nearly doubled them, they slid soundlessly to the floor.
“Oh, Chad!” Agatha whimpered. Her head fell loosely to the pit of Chadwick’s stomach. “Ohhhh!” And then she passed out.
Chadwick was unmoved by his mate’s pitiful lamentations; he had been dead to the world even before he touched the floor.
Toffee regarded the crumpled figures at her feet. “How terrible!” she breathed. “Do you suppose they’re dead?”
Marc shook his head. “They’re still breathing,” he said.
Mr. Culpepper, after a number of false starts, finally made it to his feet. His eyes wandered loosely about the room for a time, and finally arrived at the bodies on the floor.
“With all their fine manners,” he mused, “you’d think they’d find a more suitable place to retire.”
“Oh, shut up,” Marc sighed. “If you don’t I may cram a few of those pills down your gullet.”
AGATHA and Chadwick remained in their state of enforced slumber only a few minutes. Then, almost at the same time, they awoke and opened their eyes. Chadwick glanced dazedly around, stretched luxuriously and yawned a cavernous yawn. Agatha, however, seemed to suffer no after effects at all. She merely opened her eyes, surveyed the situation briefly and went directly to the business at hand. Getting to her feet, she regarded Marc and Toffee triumphantly.
“What happened?” Chadwick asked. “What hit me?”
“The pills,” Agatha reminded him. “We’re all set, love. We’ve nothing more to worry about. Shall we quit this dreadful place?”
“Oh, yes,” Chadwick smiled. “We did take the pills, didn’t we? We’re bulletproof. To coin an expression, the world is practically ours.”
Agatha took him by the arm. “Yes, dear,” she said gaily. “Tax free, too. Shall we duck out and rifle a few banks just for a starter?” her voice was exuberant, almost giddy.
“Right-ho,” Chadwick said agreeably, “And maybe a jewelry shop or two, eh? Just for good luck.”
They started happily toward the door, too wrapped up in their gold-tinted dreams of the future to notice the fascinated, expectant gaze of their erstwhile adversaries. They were almost into the outer office when it happened. Unquestionably it was the shock of their lives.
They seemed to melt like popsicles in a furnace. They dwindled so swiftly there was the faint sound of disturbed atmosphere, a little rush of air. Suddenly their clothes were hanging loosely about them, the ends of their sleeves trailing on the floor. And they were still melting. Agatha screamed with terror; and even as she did her voice faded away into a thin, childish wail,
“Oh, heavens!” Toffee cried. “They took too much. They’re disappearing entirely!” She buried her face against Marc’s shoulder. “I can’t look!”
Marc and Mr. Culpepper stared at the spectacle with open-mouthed amazement.
It was a long time before Toffee found the courage to turn away from Marc’s shoulder. When she did, her eyes moved apprehensively toward the door, and then she made a little whimpering sound. Two forlorn little piles of clothing lay there, one on either side of the doorway.
“Ohhh, Lord,” Toffee breathed. “They’re gone . . . completely gone. There’s nothing left of them, not even a whisper.”
“’Fraid you’re right,” Marc said. “Fixage fixed ’em.”
Mr. Culpepper had been greatly sobered by the disappearance of the Harpers. “I had no idea,” he muttered woodenly. “No idea at all.”
“I feel sorry,” Toffee said. “I can’t help it. They were so proud and so elegant . . . even if they were just a couple of rats.”
“Rats indeed!”
Toffee started as though slapped in the nether regions with a cactus. The voice had been nothing more than a tiny whine, a mere vibration, but it had seemed to come from the heap of clothing that had been Agatha’s. Toffee streaked across the room and knelt beside the crumpled garments. They seemed furiously agitated.
With deft fingers Toffee dug inside the clothing. First she uncovered a tiny, wrinkled hand, then an arm and finally an entire baby. The infant was very red of face and its small features were screwed up into an expression of extreme annoyance, its button eyes blazed malevolently as it gazed at Toffee. It gritted its tiny teeth.
“Witch!” it hissed. “Oh, the things I would call you if I weren’t a lady.”
“Agatha!” Toffee cried. She lowered the infant back onto the pile of clothing and turned to the tangle of male garments on the other side of the door.
A BRIEF search through a coat, a shirt and an undershirt uncovered Chadwick, also in an acute state of infancy. When he looked up and saw Toffee staring down at him he blushed furiously.
“Give me my trousers!” the baby demanded hotly. “Stop staring at me and give me my trousers!”
“Well, for heaven sake!” Toffee exclaimed.
She placed the depleted Harpers side by side on the lounge, and Marc and Mr. Culpepper moved to her side. As babies, the erstwhile thieves were markedly unbeautiful, and Toffee musingly remarked as much. At this the infant Agatha surprisingly forgot herself and poured out a string of oaths such as would have done credit to a stevedore on a hot day. Chadwick continued to blush.
“What are we going to do with them?” Toffee asked. “We can’t turn them over to the police like this.”
“Certainly not,” Marc agreed. “And we can’t keep them around. If my wife should suddenly come home and find me with a couple of babies. . .” He shuddered at the thought. “We’ll have to restore them.” He turned to Mr. Culpepper. “We can do that, can’t we?”
“Yes!” Toffee cried. “We could bring them back to what they were before their faces were changed, couldn’t we? That would solve everything.”
This suggestion provoked a discordant howl from the infant Harpers.
“I don’t know,” the little scientist mused. “It could be done all right, but it would have to be done very carefully. We’d have to give them spirits in exact amounts. A little too much one way or another ...” He stroked the tip of his nose with a slender finger. “Figuring on the basis of the amounts that you and Mr. Pillsworth consumed to restore yourselves, I could probably . . .” He retreated to the chair behind Marc’s desk, tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Yes, yes,” he murmured dreamily.
“Will you just listen!” Agatha piped. “They’re going to work us out a Whiskey formula.”
“I don’t care what they work out,” Chadwick replied, rolling unhappily over onto his fat little stomach. “I want some clothes. I’m cold and embarrassed.”
“See if you can find something for them to wear,” Marc said, turning to Toffee. “Try the model’s dressing rooms in the photographer’s studio; there may be something there.” He glanced briefly at Toffee’s faintly obscured figure. “And while you’re about it,” he added, “you might pick up something for yourself.”
Toffee nodded and left the room. When she returned she was resplendent in a shimmering ice-blue evening gown that had a very conservative neckline . . . provided a girl’s neck, by some freak of nature, commenced somewhere in the region of her midriff. The glistening material clung tightly to her body, highlighting its more provocative features. When she walked she shimmered with a loveliness that seemed almost unreal.
In her hand she was carrying two brief lengths of black velvet. These she twined haphazardly around the rather brief figures of Agatha and Chadwick.
“How’s that little wretch coming with our formula?” Agatha asked.
“Yes,” Chadwick put in, “I could do with a spot or two very nicely just now.”
Toffee glanced at Mr. Culpepper who, for all the world, seemed merely to be enjoying a sound sleep. His facial muscles twitched occasionally, though, giving testimony to the experimental processes that were being accomplished inside.
“Keep your diapers on,” Toffee said. “He’s doing what he can.”
“Oh, well,” Chadwick sighed. “I suppose there’s really no hurry. They’ll only turn us over to the police when we’re restored.”
“I don’t care,” Agatha said, eyeing Toffee’s new loveliness with envy. “I’d rather rot in jail than be left to go on groveling around like this.”
THERE was a sudden snort from Mr. Culpepper as his head snapped forward, and his eyes opened. “I have it,” he announced composedly. “As I have it figured, ten jiggers of strong whiskey should restore them to what they were six months ago.” He turned to Marc. “Do you have any liquor handy?”
Marc shook his head. “We’ll have to go out for it.”
“Very well,” Mr. Culpepper said. “I’ll go.”
“No. We’ll all have to go,” Marc said. “We can’t risk staying here. The cleaning ladies will be around this way soon. If they saw this . . .” he indicated the babies and Toffee, “. . . there would be a scandal that would make Hollywood furious with envy.”
Leaving the building, the Pillsworth party was one to startle and confound, a woman in a revealing evening gown carrying two velvet-swathed babies and accompanied by two extremely uneasy looking gentlemen, was a sight to give pause to even the most careless-minded citizen. Indeed, several citizens not
only paused but stopped cold in their tracks as they saw the strange group moving toward them. With grave dignity, though, glancing neither to the right nor to the left, the ill-matched fivesome proceeded to the end of the block, waited in heavy silence for a change of traffic signals, crossed the street and disappeared through the doors of a retail liquor store. There they were greeted by a large, befuddled looking merchant.
The merchant surveyed his approaching customers with silent disbelief. Then he seemed to shake himself from an absorbing dream.
“This is a liquor store,” he said dully.
“Yes, we know,” Toffee said politely. “That’s why we’ve come.”
“I just thought I’d mention it,” the merchant said unhappily, clearing his throat. He glanced out the window and closed his eyes a minute. Then he turned back to the group before the counter and seemed to be surprised all over again.
“Since you’re really here,” he said, “what can I do for you?”
“We’d like a bottle of strong whiskey,” Toffee said. She turned questioningly to Mr. Culpepper who nodded back to her approvingly. “The strongest you have.”
“Two bottles!” a tiny voice suddenly piped from the depths of one of the velvet bundles. Chadwick’s small head bobbed into sight. “Make it two! And make it snappy!”
Agatha’s head was only a moment behind Chadwick’s in making its appearance. “Sot!” she accused. “Greedy little pig!”
“You be still,” Chadwick rejoined. “What if I do get a little drunk tonight? Who ever had a better reason? Just being married to you would be enough, I should think! I’ve got it coming to me.”
“You’ve got a lot coming to you,” Agatha shrilled. “And someday you’re going to get it. If it hadn’t been for you starting that fight up there . . .”
“Please,” the infant Chadwick said, looking pained. “Try to restrain your shrewish tendencies just this once, won’t you?” He turned to the liquor merchant with a bland smile. “Two bottles, if you please, friend.”