The Complete Adventures of Toffee

by Charles F. Myers

“Do you really like them that much?”

  “Please, George ...”

  “Well ... all right.”

  AND so it was that the congressman, long distracted by a view of Toffee fawning on a vacant chair, suddenly found himself staring across the room at two disembodied eyes which lolled in mid-air, swiveling and rolling about in a delirious attempt to be flashing and roguish. He coughed in a strangled way and glanced around at the judge.

  The judge, had the congressman been astute enough to notice, had suddenly gone white about the gills and showed a shifty disinclination to meet his gaze. The truth of the matter was that the judge, similarly baffled by Toffee’s seductive attitude toward the chair, had also been subjected to the nasty sight of George’s grotesque eye exercises. He, like the congressman, had experienced a feeling of giddiness at the nape of the neck and decided against mentioning the incident. After gazing upon a pair of air-borne eyes which have just crossed themselves in their zeal to convey the charm of the rake, one is generally loath to bring the subject up with anyone save the local psychiatrist. However, had either gentleman had the least inkling of the mad delights yet to come, they might have well bolted the room, shouting the news to the world.

  The fact was that Toffee, in her endeavor to hypnotize George, was meeting with extraordinary success. Having gazed into George’s eyes with his full cooperation it was only the matter of a moment before the hapless shade was completely mesmerized. The eyes, under Toffee’s steady gaze, grew heavy, drooped, closed altogether, then reopened with a slightly dazed appearance. It was not a pleasant sight, but Toffee appeared to find satisfaction in it.

  Not so, however, the judge and the congressman. Watching these developments with sidelong anxiety, they were sore put to it to continue with the business at hand.

  “Yes, yes,” the judge said vaguely, “you were telling me about this blackguard who’s been saying all these filthy things about you ...?”

  “Eh?” the congressman said, starting. “Oh! Oh, yes. This fellow, the blackguard. I was saying that if he was half a man ...!”

  The congressman got no further for it was precisely in this moment that Toffee commanded George to materialize. There must have been, however, a lack of authority in her tone, for the results fell short of perfection. In fact, they fell short by exactly fifty percent. George, starting at the top of his head, blossomed rapidly into being down to the waist and there, quite devoid of his lower quarters, stopped. In effect, no sooner did the congressman speak of half a man than the order was filled to exact specifications. The congressman not only stopped speaking, but stopped breathing as well.

  A NERVOUS hush fell over the courtroom, for by now several others had begun to notice the half-portion George and were just as reticent to mention the matter as either the congressman or the judge. The judge clutched grimly to the bench for support and forced himself to look away. He laughed a dry, cackling laugh.

  “Well, well,” he said with feeble heartiness, “we mustn’t fall into a reverie, must we? You haven’t half—I mean you haven’t really begun to tell me about these slurs against you, congressman.”

  There was something markedly distraught in the congressman’s expression as he turned back to the bench. He fiddled with his tie, reached into his pocket, took something out and began to finger it nervously. It was Toffee’s gadget.

  “Well,” he babbled. “I was only saying that anyone with half—I mean any mind at all would be able to see ... uh ... see ...”

  As he spoke, the congressman turned the gadget absently in his hand. It was on the fifth turn, when it was pointing directly at the judge, that his finger inadvertently snagged against the button and shoved it to one side. Instantly, as though the judge had never been there at all, the bench was starkly and dramatically deserted, with only the gavel left to mark its recent occupancy. The congressman gaped unbelievingly, shook his head, closed his eyes, then opened them again. The judge was still absent.

  The congressman turned to the others and found himself and the bench the focal points for a sea of shocked eyes. He shuddered, pressed the gadget self-consciously in a fit of nerves. The button snapped in the opposite direction. In the next instant there was a shrill scream from the faded blond.

  Those in court turned in unison to find that the judge, just as suddenly as he had departed, had reappeared. This time, however, he was comfortably ensconced in the lap of the distraught blond. In a courtroom where many odd things had recently taken place, it was the general concensus that when the judge of that court sneaks from the bench, creeps up on the nearest blond and hurls himself into her lap, some sort of climax has been reached. A murmur of indignation rose through the room.

  The blond, for her part, agreed with the concensus, but did not stop at an indignant protest. Doubling up her fist she belted the judge a nasty blow in the eye.

  “You mangey old goat!” she shrieked.

  The congressman, by now in a veritable frenzy of nervousness, pressed the button again. This time it was Toffee who disappeared. The murmur in the court became still more disturbed. The congressman twiddled the button in the opposite direction.

  Miraculously, Toffee appeared behind the bench in the judge’s position. She picked up the gavel and banged for attention.

  “The court will come to order!” she shrilled happily. “Knock it off, everybody!”

  A NEW kind of hush fell over the room. The congressman, slack-mouthed, looked up at Toffee with the fearful look of a man who has finally been backed to the wall on the question of his own sanity. The judge, nursing a blow on the left ear as another was being addressed to the right, looked up in horror.

  “Here!” he yelled. “Get off that bench!”

  “Get off that blond!” Toffee shot back. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” She whirled about on the trembling congressman. “As for you, you big fat traitor, I want a clean confession and no nonsense.”

  “I don’t have to talk to you,” the congressman said uncertainly. “You can’t make me say anything.”

  “Maybe not,” Toffee said, “but what about your conscience?”

  “Conscience?” the congressman said uncertainly.

  “The term is unfamiliar to you?” Toffee said. “I’m not surprised. Let me try to explain it to you. A guilty conscience can play awful tricks on people.” She eyed the congressman closely. “It can even make you think you’re seeing things, for instance.”

  The congressman’s eyes widened with an awful fear. “See—see things?” he quavered. “What kind of things do you mean?”

  “Well,” Toffee said reflectively, “say a man is responsible for another man’s murder. If his conscience gets ahold of him he may begin to see that man as still alive. He may even see two such men, just alike. In really bad cases the subject is likely to imagine one of the men in a state of mutilation, say cut in half. Of course, that’s pretty extreme.”

  The congressman glanced compulsively in George’s direction and turned ashen. George, still at half mast, stared back at him with fixed blankness. The congressman groaned.

  “Then there’s the very worst sort of conscience,” Toffee went on. “That’s when everything gets mixed up. Through a close study of recorded cases, we find that the first attack commonly occurs when the criminal is confronted with his crimes, usually publicly, as in a court of law.”

  “H-how do you mean?” the congressman whispered. “Whu-what happens?”

  “Well, everything begins to appear to be just the opposite of what it really is. There is a famous English case in which the victim was so far gone that he actually believed that the magistrate on the bench had become a beautiful girl. He described the illusion, I believe, as a gorgeous redhead with an exquisite figure and legs too perfect to be true.” Toffee laughed gaily. “Can you imagine anyone getting themselves looped up to that extent?”

  The congressman forced a laugh that had all the light-hearted spontaneity of a coffin lid being pried up at midnight. “That boy was really
gone, wasn’t he—your honor?”

  “Call me Ralph, old man,” Toffee said.

  “Of course, Ralph, old boy,” the congressman said, blinking.

  EXPERIMENTALLY, Toffee opened a drawer under the bench and withdrew a large black cigar. Inserting this into her month, she leaned forward toward the congressman. “Gotta light, friend?” she enquired.

  The congressman started back sharply at this new incongruity. It was a moment before he recovered.

  “Sure,” he said, taking out a lighter and waggling it beneath the cigar. “Sure thing.”

  Taking a healthy puff on the cigar, Toffee leaned back luxuriously and blew out a cloud of smoke. “What say we adjourn?” she suggested. “We can slip around to the club and cut up a few touches with the boys.”

  “Well, all right,” the congressman said, attempting a wan smile. “But ... ”

  Toffee took the cigar from her mouth and leaned forward. “Yes, old man?”

  “About these cases,” the congressman said. “That fellow in England ...”

  “Oh, the one who thought the magistrate was a beautiful girl? It’s hard to believe, of course, but you must remember it was an extreme case. The most severe ever recorded, I believe. The funeral was only a formality, of course, since there wasn’t even a scrap of him recovered. Exploded, you know.”

  “Exploded!”

  “That’s right. The only thing of its kind in medical history. Poor devil went right off. With a great whopping roar, they said. The doctors said it was caused by repressed emotion.”

  “Oh, Mona!” the congressman groaned.

  “Didn’t mean to upset you, old friend,” Toffee said. “It’s an unpleasant thing to talk about.”

  “But couldn’t they have saved him?” the congressman asked. “Suppose they had gotten him to a psychiatrist or something before it happened?”

  “Actually it was much simpler than that,” Toffee said ponderously. “The fellow could have saved himself merely by confessing. Confession, you know, is the only thing for a bad conscience. Highly recommended by all the best authorities. Those church people are doing it all the time—can’t stop church people from confessing—and you never heard of one of them exploding, did you?”

  “That’s right,” the congressman said hopefully. His gaze travelled out the window, a clouded look of inner turmoil on his face.

  “It was just one of those things,” Toffee put in. “One minute this chap was standing there in court just as hail and hearty as beans and the next—boom!—and the spectators were whisking him off their coat sleeves and passing round the cleaning fluid!”

  The congressman whirled about in a convulsion of anguish. “I confess!” he blurted. “I confess everything!”

  “Not everything,” Toffee said. “Leave the racy personal stuff for another time.”

  The congressman reached out the gadget and dropped it on the bench. Toffee picked it up as he followed that contribution with a key.

  “There’s the key to the storeroom,” the congressman said, “and the one to the private files. And here’s a list of the members of the organization.” He started as Rooney stepped forward and took him by the arm.

  “Take him away,” Toffee said blithely. “Find him a cell with lots of padding. And take his bodyguard too.”

  AS the congressman and the thug disappeared in the custody of Rooney, Toffee mashed out her cigar, quitted the bench and proceeded across the court where the blond was still throttling the judge.

  “Better let him up, honey,” she advised gently. “He’s turning a very nasty blue.”

  The blond stopped to consider the judge’s complexion and let him drop to the floor.

  “Loathsome old bore!” she hissed as he sat up and rubbed his neck, then got to his feet and tottered off toward the bench. “That’ll teach you next time.”

  Toffee moved on to Marc. “Well, don’t just sit there,” she said, “Let’s get at it.”

  Marc looked up apprehensively. “At what?” he asked.

  “Everything,” Toffee said spaciously. “On the town.”

  “Haven’t you had enough excitement?” Marc asked wearily.

  “Not of the right sort,” Toffee said. “What I crave is soft lights and wine and all that sort of elegant truck. Come on.”

  “What about George?”

  “Oh, yes,” Toffee reflected, “there is George, isn’t there?” She regarded the transfixed half-spirit thoughtfully. “It would serve him right if we just left him here, cut off at the pockets. Still I don’t suppose it’s the thing to do ...” A look of inspiration came to her face. “I know.”

  Taking her gadget from beneath her arm, she levelled it at George and pressed the button. Instantly George disappeared entirely. Toffee replaced the instrument and turned to Marc.

  “There,” she said brightly. “George in the handy pocket size, where he can’t do any harm. Now we’re all set for a life of gin and sin, and no interruptions.”

  “Now, wait a minute!” Marc said. “We’re not set for anything, much less a life of gin and sin as you so pungently put it. Do I have to remind you that I have a wife to think of?”

  “I don’t care if you have a whole regiment of wives to think of,” Toffee said testily. “I’ve protected and preserved you and, by gum, you’re mine. At least right now. Your wife can just take her chances on what’s left.”

  “If you continue with this scandalous talk,” Marc said, shocked into primness, “I’m going to be forced to get up and walk right out of here.”

  “You take one step without me,” Toffee warned, “and I’ll break both your legs,”

  “Oh, well ...” Marc sighed.

  “That’s better,” Toffee nodded. “Of course I’ll need some clothes, something terribly expensive and revealing ... ”

  SHE broke off as the doors of the courtroom burst open and Julie, followed by the three doctors from the hospital, charged down the aisle.

  “My God!” Marc cried. “Julie!” He swung around to Toffee. “Go away! Vanish!”

  “I’m darned if I will,” Toffee said. “I’ve stuck by you through all the thin and now I want some of the thick of it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Marc said miserably. “Just wait till Julie sees us; things will get thick in a hurry.”

  Even as Marc spoke the atmosphere began to congeal swiftly. Julie, having caught sight of the curious tableau formed by Marc and the scantily clad Toffee, jarred to a stop, digging her heels into the floor. A sharp, enraged sound came from her lips.

  Julie, after her experience of the night before had recovered her physical faculties, but her emotional condition was still skittish. A wife, summoned to identify her dying husband, rather sets her mind on a scene of tearful sighs and murmured remembrances, with perhaps a touch of violin music in the background. When she finds her waning spouse looking perfectly alive and perky and in close proximity to a dangerous looking redhead, her bubble has a tendency to burst with a considerable bang.

  “Marc Pillsworth!” Julie screamed. “Who is that woman!” And raising her handbag aloft she proceeded forward with mayhem unmistakably number one on her agenda.

  Groaning, Marc rose from his chair. “She’s going to kill me!”

  Meanwhile, the doctors had also caught sight of Marc.

  “There he is!” the first doctor said. “We’d better close in on him fast.”

  “It’s amazing,” the second doctor mused. “The man must be living sheerly on the energy of hysteria. He should have been dead hours ago.” He turned to the third doctor. “Do you have the chloroform ready?”

  The doctor nodded and exhibited a can and a large sponge. “Wait till the Medical Association hears about this,” he said excitedly. “They’ll never believe it!”

  Thus armed, the men in white pressed forward close in the wake of Julie.

  Marc retreated in confusion toward the bench. “They’re all after me!” he cried. “I can’t stand much more of this. If just one more character tries
to kill me ... !”

  THE doors of the court swung open and a tall, grim-lipped man barged into the room and down the aisle. He was carrying a large meat axe. Across the room the blond leaped joyously from her chair.

  “Darling!” she yelled and ran to meet him. They came together in a tight clinch just inside the gate. “How did you find me, honey?”

  “Bureau of Missing Persons,” the man said cryptically. “Where is he?”

  “Who, sweet?”

  “This creep who kidnapped you. Point him out.”

  The blond glanced around. “That’s him,” she said, pointing, “the one with all those people following him.”

  The man observed Marc’s retreating figure with a professional eye. “Not much meat on him,” he judged, “especially around the shank.” He shoved the blond aside. “This’ll only take a second.”

  “Mother in heaven!” Toffee cried, “the whole population is out to get you.” She pulled Marc out of reach of Julie’s bag as it made a broad swipe at his head. “Come on, let’s join the judge!”

  Together, they raced around the bench and started to mount to the chair.

  “Get away!” the judge screamed, taking in the ranks of Marc’s attackers. “Don’t come up here!”

  “Sorry,” Toffee said, leaping lightly up beside him and snatching up the gavel. “This is total war!”

  Marc gaining the bench, turned his attention to Julie. “Please, dear!” he cried. “There’s nothing to be sore about!”

  “Oh, isn’t there?” Julie gritted. “What about that naked little trull you’re with?” She hefted the bag anew.

  “Let me at him!” the enraged butcher bellowed from the flank. “I’ll get him if I have to hack that bench away around him!”

  In answer, Toffee brandished the gavel in a wide gesture of defiance which terminated solidly on the side of the judge’s nose.

  “Ouch!” the judge roared, grabbing his face with both hands. “Clear the court!”

  “Hell!” the butcher yelled. “I’m going to smear the court with that lousy kidnapper!”