George, thoroughly humiliated at having been bested by a mere whisp of a girl, became emotionally confused, lost control, as before in the courtroom, and completely materialized. He looked up at Toffee sprawled untidily across his chest, and flushed.
“You didn’t have to knock me down,” he murmured woundedly. Toffee glanced down at her defeated adversary and started with amazement.
“Marc!” she cried. “How did you get down there?”
At the phone booth Marc was still panting for breath. “Did you expect me to come out of there dancing a rhumba?” he asked peevishly.
Toffee whirled about. “Marc!” she yelled.
“Stop screaming my name at me,” Marc said. “All I want is ...!”
HIS VOICE retreated down his throat with a gurgle of surprise as he caught sight of George.
“Wha ... !”
Toffee turned from one to the other. “Which one of you is which?” she gasped confusedly.
“I’m me,” Marc murmured vaguely. “Who’s he?” Toffee sprang away from her perch on George’s chest.
“Oh, mother!” she cried.
“Well,” George said resignedly, getting to his feet. “I suppose that I might as well admit it, now that you’ve found me out.” He turned to Marc. “I’m your ghost.”
“Ghost!” Marc and Toffee sang it out together. As Marc sprang to his feet, they both closed in on George, crowded him back defensively into one of the phone booths.
During all this, the incident had attracted several innocent bystanders who were now looking on with baffled interest.
“What have they got in there?” one official-looking gentleman asked another. “Did you see?”
The other shook his head. “I think they said it was a goat.”
“A goat? What on earth are they doing with a goat in there? Do you suppose they have the beast talking to someone on the phone?”
“If they have,” the second replied, “it had better yell for help. They were crowding the poor thing something awful. On the other hand, maybe they just wanted to milk it. If it’s a modest goat it might be reluctant about being milked right out here in the middle of the hall.”
“I know I would,” the first gentleman said, “if I were a goat. I wouldn’t blame it a bit. It’s shocking, just the thought of it.”
“They’re doing the best they can,” the second gentleman reminded. “I can see where a reluctant goat wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world to get along with.”
“Just the same, I don’t approve,” the first man said. “Not even a little bit. If the goat is shy, they shouldn’t bring it out in public to milk it like this.”
“Maybe they’re trying to teach it social poise,” the second man suggested.
“I don’t care,” the first said. “Livestock should be left at home. Someone should speak to the Health Commissioner about this!”
The second man shook his head with mild amusement. “That shouldn’t be difficult for you,” he said. “You are the Health Commissioner. Or did they get you in the last clean-up?”
The first man looked at him sharply. “The devil you say!” he exclaimed. He thought about it for a moment. “By heaven, you’re right. Sometimes I forget. I thought I was the Water Commissioner. Haven’t been to my office for weeks to see what it says on the door.” He started away, then turned back. “Why don’t you come in and complain to me about this goat? It wouldn’t look right if I complained to myself, would it? My secretary would think it was odd.”
Meanwhile Marc and Toffee had wedged themselves into the doorway of the telephone booth and were staring incredulously at George.
“Well,” George said uneasily, “haven’t you ever seen a ghost before?”
“I should hope to tell you I haven’t,” Toffee said fervently. She looked at George with suspicion, “How do we know you’re a ghost? Can you prove it?”
“Do I have to?” George said unhappily.
“It would help clear things up considerably,” Marc said. “Personally, I don’t believe a word of it.”
George stared at them for a long moment, then sighed. “Oh, all right,” he murmured. “If you insist, Of course this is terribly corny, and you probably won’t like it, but it should give you an idea.”
AS MARC and Toffee watched, George carefully controlled his ectoplasm, dissolved his head down to a grinning skull, and issued a moaning sound.
“Mother in heaven!” Toffee said, closing her eyes. “Stop doing that!”
George, only too happy to do so, quickly rematerialized his head. “I told you you wouldn’t like it,” he said.
“But how could you be my ghost?” Marc said shakenly. “I’m not dead.”
“Are you sure?” Toffee said. “Personally, I feel quite dead and gone to hell after looking at that.”
“But you’re supposed to be dead,” George said with sudden self-righteousness. “If you were any good at all, you’d be mouldering in your grave at this very moment. You were supposed to have been blown to bits in an explosion. That’s why they sent me.”
“Who sent you?” Marc asked.
“I’d rather not discuss them, if it’s all the same to you,” George said.
“Well,” Marc said, “I’m alive. So you can just go back to them, whoever they are, and tell them they’re mistaken.”
“But I don’t want to go back,” George said unhappily. He looked at Marc speculatively. “Couldn’t you just sort of kick off?”
“I beg your pardon?” Marc asked incredulously. “Do I understand you right? Are you asking me to kill myself just to accommodate you?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t have to do it all yourself,” George said. “I’d be very happy to assist you.”
“So!” Toffee cried. “So that’s what you were up to! You were trying to strangle him with that phone booth!”
George shrugged sheepishly. “I didn’t think I should pass up any opportunity. I’ll admit it’s not a very fancy way to die...”
“You fiend!” Marc said. “You horror!”
“Oh, please, no!” George objected woundedly. “You just aren’t looking at the thing right, that’s all. Fair’s fair, you know. After all, I’ve been waiting years for you to pop off, and...”
“And you’re going to wait a great many more years as far as I’m concerned!” Marc said.
“I was afraid you’d be narrow about it,” George said dejectedly. Tears came to his eyes. “I’ve always had to take your left-overs. Your second name, even. I couldn’t call myself Marc, because that was the name you wanted. I had to take George. It’s unjust.”
“Well, don’t go on about it,” Toffee said. “There’s no use blubbering.”
“You might just as well go away,” Marc said firmly. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to pop off, as you so picturesquely put it, just to please a spook with criminal tendencies.” He glanced heavenward. “This, on top of everything else!”
The tears welled larger in George’s unhappy eyes. He looked at Toffee and Marc and flushed at making such an open display of his emotions. To hide his feelings he sadly dissolved his head. The thin air above his shoulders echoed with a moist snuffle.
“Oh, Lord!” Toffee moaned. “He’s up to his tricks again! Would you listen to that?”
“I wouldn’t if I could help it,” Mare said.
“Let’s get away from this snivelling shade before he drives us crazy,” Toffee said urgently. “I’m so upset I wouldn’t be surprised if I walked out of here on my hands.”
“The way he is right now,” Marc agreed, “he’s the most haunting ghost I’ve ever seen. I’ll certainly never forget him.”
Together, they turned and moved away from the phone booth and quickly down the corridor.
“He’ll have to shift for himself,” Marc said. “I’ve got other things to worry about.”
As they moved away, out of the entrance of the building, several of the more curious spectators converged on the phone booth and glanced cautiously inside.<
br />
It was empty.
Outside, an officer showed Marc and Toffee to the green convertible which had been delivered there by the government men. Marc helped Toffee in, then crossed around and slid in under the wheel. With a look of determination, he shifted the gears and directed the car into traffic.
The sound of the shifting gears obscured the muffled snuffling sound that emanated briefly from the back seat.
CHAPTER VIII
MARC BRAKED the convertible to a stop at the signal and glanced worriedly in the rearview mirror. “They’re still there,” he said.
Toffee swung about in the seat and stared without subterfuge at the black sedan and it’s occupants.
“It’s those filthy twins,” she said. “Even their car looks subversive.”
Marc turned his attention again to the mirror. “They may be with the government,” he said. “They’ve probably been assigned to watch us.” He shrugged a dismissal. “Anyway, they’re the least of my worries.”
He released the brake and started forward again on the light. He did not mention the greatest and most immediate of his worries; an overwhelming attack of weariness had come over him in the last few minutes and it was alarmingly reminiscent of the one he’d suffered yesterday just before he’d begun to float, If he was about to come buoyant again he wanted desperately to reach home and Julie before it happened. He narrowed his eyes on the blur of the traffic ahead and tightened his grip on the wheel, He knew as he did it, however, that he was never going to make it.
Marc managed the next block without incident, and the next, but in the middle of the third, he swung the car sharply to the curb and brought it to a quick stop. In the next instant, just as he switched off the ignition, his head slumped heavily to the steering wheel. It happened so suddenly that he didn’t notice the irony of his location; he had parked almost exactly in front of the Wynant. Neither did he see the black sedan pull up behind.
Toffee swung quickly toward him and gripped his shoulder. “Marc!” she called, shaking him. “What’s wrong?”
There was a moment of tense silence and then, just as before, Marc revived as quickly as he had succumbed. He lifted his head from the wheel, and looked dazedly around.
“What happened?” he asked.
But Toffee was not concerned with the events of the past. “Oh, golly!” she wailed. “Look! There you go again!”
Marc glanced quickly down at the seat and suffered a thrill of horror. Toffee had spoken the truth; indeed, he was going again with all anchors cast off. He had already risen, still in a sitting position, to such a height that his knees were resting snugly against the steering wheel.
“Grab me!” he yelled. “Pull me down!”
“I am grabbing you!” Toffee cried, renewing her efforts on his shoulder. “Hang on to something!” Marc bent forward and took hold of the wheel.
The action threw him into a curious doubled-up position, so that he seemed to have braced himself against the device with his knees so that he might pull at it with both hands. To the casual passerby on the sidewalk it presented a rather intriguing problem in logic. A pair of shop-girls turned away from a window, started away, then stopped to observe the activity in the convertible with baffled interest.
“Why do you suppose he’s so anxious to get that wheel off?” one asked, turning to the other.
“I can’t imagine,” the second said thoughtfully. “He seems terribly mad about something, though. I pity his girl friend.”
“I should say. I wouldn’t go out with a fellow with that kind of temper for a million dollars.”
MEANWHILE the state of affairs in the convertible was swiftly becoming crucial. Marc was beginning to realize that the upward pull on his body was even stronger than before.
“Don’t let me go!” he told Toffee. “Out here, it’ll be the end of me!” Then suddenly both he and Toffee looked around as a cough of expectancy issued ominously from the back seat. Before their apprehensive eyes a heavy flashlight swiftly raised itself from the floor of the car and darted menacingly forward. A chuckle of malevolent intent sullied the charged silence in the car.
“Go away!” Marc yelled. “Beat it, you homicidal haunt! George!”
But the flashlight continued forward, swung upward over Marc’s clutching hands, and poised itself for a smashing blow.
“No!” Marc yelled. “No!”
Then, as the flashlight started swiftly downward, Marc closed his eyes and let go.
Instantly, he popped upward out of the car and continued going. The flashlight shattered against the wheel and dropped dully to the floor. George promptly went about the business of materializing himself at Toffee’s side. No sooner, however, did his face appear than Toffee dealt it a stinging blow.
“You low-living spook!” she grated. “I ought to scramble your ectoplasm for you!”
George blinked at her woundedly.
“Why do you always blame me?” he asked. “I’m only trying to do my job. You’re being a terrible sport about all this.”
“And I’m going to get worse,” Toffee said hotly. She glanced frightenedly after Marc who had already risen beyond the elegance of the Wynant canopy and was closing in rapidly on the second floor.
“He’ll never stop!” she cried. “He’ll go up into space and explode!”
The crowd, gathering quickly about the convertible, watched Marc’s ascent with stunned silence. In back of the convertible, the door of the black sedan swung open and the Blemishes, like a pair of soiled moles, arrived on the sidewalk. They forced their way to the front of the crowd.
As the brothers looked upward, their unlovely faces, as nearly as they ever would, expressed true anxiety.
Above, Marc passed the second floor and rose swiftly to the third. He seemed to be gathering momentum on his upward journey. The fourth floor drifted by. His thoughts churned. He wanted to scream, but somehow there wasn’t time. And then, miraculously, he was caught in a strong draft of wind, and thrown roughly toward the face of the building. He reached out frantically, grabbing, clutching for something to hang on to. And then his hand slapped against a window ledge, caught, and held.
Marc brought his other hand down to the ledge, found a hold and clung. He drew in a breath of relief and his whole body throbbed with the beat of his heart. As he hung there, his body continued upward, however, upending him crazily against the wall of the hotel.
Down on the sidewalk, the Blemishes were instantly inspired to action.
“Come on!” they yelled. “Let’s fish him in!”
Toffee looked at the two men. She was in no mood or position to question any source of aid at the moment, no matter how questionable it appeared. She turned to George with cool hostility.
“You make a move out of this car,” she threatened, “and you’ll be only a ghost of a ghost when I get through with you.” Then, swinging the car door open, she joined the dark Blemishes in a streaking dash toward the entrance of the hotel.
ON THE FIFTH floor of the Wynant, Mrs. Hunter Reynolds sat rigidly in her bathtub and stared with fixed horror at the face which had just appeared upside down at her bathroom window. An old belle of the old South, Mrs. Hunter Reynolds had ventured into the North expecting only the worst. Now the worst had happened.
The shaken lady gripped the sides of her tub and tried hard to prevent herself from sinking to a watery grave. She closed her eyes and reasoned sternly with herself; it was all a trick of the imagination; even a damnyankee head couldn’t do the disgraceful thing this crazy head was doing. And then her eyes flew wildly open as the room suddenly dinned with a shouted plea for help.
At this point Mrs. Hunter Reynolds had a plea of her own to shout. “God in heaven, sir!” she said, trying desperately to maintain some last shred of dignity now that all decency was gone. “God in heaven, stop invadin’ my privacy this way. I ask it in the name of the South.”
“Help me!” Marc panted. “Come pull me in!”
Mrs. Hunter Reynolds star
ted in her tub. “You’re speakin’ to a lady, sir!” she gasped. “Please go away. My water’s gettin’ cold.”
“I can’t help your water,” Marc said unhappily.
“Sir!” the southern lady cried. “I’m not askin’ you to help my water. I’m askin’ you to leave my water entirely alone.”
“Delighted,” Marc wheezed. “I wouldn’t touch your water with a ten foot thermometer. I’ll close my eyes if you’ll just give me a hand.”
“If I give you a hand, sir,” Mrs. Hunter Reynolds said coolly, “it will be across your insultin’ damnyankee mouth. If you don’t leave instantly I’ll call my husband, the Colonel.”
“For heaven’s sake, call him!” Marc implored. “He can help me.”
“It’s more likely he’ll whip you within an inch of your life,” Mrs. Hunter Reynolds said stoutly. Swirling about in her suds, she faced the doorway, prepared to scream, then turned back to Marc.
“First, sir,” she said. “Would you do me the pleasure of tellin’ me if you are a whole damnyankee or only a damnyankee head?”
“I’m a whole damn ... whole,” he said.
“Thank you, sir,” Mrs. Hunter Reynolds said with a slight bow. Then she opened her mouth wide and screamed with unbelievable feeling and vigor.
“Hunter!” she shrieked. “Hunter! There’s a whole damnyankee invadin’ my privacy!”
Even before she had stopped screaming the door to the bathroom burst open and Col. Hunter Reynolds charged into view, obviously prepared to defend southern chivalry to the end, if necessary. Needing only a julep in his hand to complete the picture, he was a fair caricature of all southern colonels.
“Damnyankee, did you say” he thundered. “There!” his wife said, agitating her bath water. She pointed dramatically to the window.
“Gad!” the Colonel snorted. “That’s the damndest damnyankee I’ve ever seen. He’s upside down, isn’t he? Gave me quite a turn for a second there. But it looks like he’s had quite a turn himself. The Colonel chuckled foolishly at his own pleasantry.
“I’m the one who’s had the turn!” his wife snapped. “Stop that silly gigglin’ and titterin’, you old fool, and do something.”
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 43
