The siege of the bench raged, and it will always be a sterling testimony to Julie’s physical prowess that as she scaled the bench, the lethal handbag never once ceased to twirl over her head; if it happened to strike the judge more often than anyone else it was only because her aim was deflected by her overwrought emotions. To Marc and Toffee, however, the real menace lay in the butcher and his cleaver. Only by the most adroit maneuverings with the gavel was Toffee able to delay his murderous progress with a few strategic licks on the shins.
THE doctors, on the other hand, gave themselves over more to calculated strategy. While two of them tried to close in on Marc from the sides, the chloroformist, can and sponge held ready, crept up from the rear. They might have succeeded in this maneuver except for Toffee. The redhead, seeing that time and speed were of the essence, abandoned her attack on the butcher and sailed forward, the gavel raised in one hand, the gadget in the other. Her plan was to dispatch the flankers with a single action, then sweep on to overcome the third doctor with all dispatch. The strategy, however, was too hastily conceived to be really successful.
Marc in an effort to avoid Julie’s bag, leaped forward at just the wrong moment. Throwing himself toward Toffee, he received the full impact of both the gavel and the gadget, one to the ear. He reeled to one side, stumbled and sprawled to the floor, shaking his head,
“Oh, no!” he wailed, looking back reproachfully at Toffee. “Not you too!”
But Toffee didn’t answer; she was far too surprised and pleased at the sudden results of this little accident. In banging Marc over the head with the gadget, she had inadvertently sprung the switch and introduced George, completely restored to the last molecule, into the very center of the proceedings. She only regretted she hadn’t thought of it sooner as she saw the attackers, in the confusion, turn on George in force.
“Stay down,” she hissed and dropped down lightly beside Marc.
“While George is standing in for you, let’s get out of this.”
Marc rose to his knees, took in the new development and nodded. “This way,” he said, indicating a door behind the bench. “I saw the judge crawling out this way a minute ago.”
Together they scuttled on their hands and knees to the door. Marc edged it open, let Toffee through, then followed after. Safe, they turned back to see how the battle was developing around the bench.
George appeared to be finding himself at rather a rude disadvantage. And it is entirely conceivable that the besieged spook might well have been confused in that his last conscious moment had been the one of promised amour just before Toffee hypnotized him. Now, suddenly restored to awareness, instead of a fawning redhead, he found himself confronted by what appeared to be a select group of the worst fiends of hell.
George’s gaze grew more and more terrified as he took in the swinging handbag, the slashing meat axe and the intense, determined faces of the doctors. With a single shriek of despair, as the meat axe made a swipe at his ear, he staggered backwards and vanished into thin air.
“Poor George,” Toffee giggled. “I’ve got a feeling he checked out for good just then. He looked like a ghost who’s just remembered a previous engagement.”
MARC got up, closed the door and flicked the latch. He stopped, glanced around at the room. It was some sort of inner chamber, resplendent of leather and polished wood, a place of durability and hard surfaces, lighted by a large brass lamp standing on an enormous oak desk. At the far end of the room a door stood ajar, opening onto a hallway which pointed the direction of the judge’s recent escape. Marc crossed to it and closed and locked it.
“Well,” Toffee said, perching herself lightly on the corner of the desk. “This is more like it. Private.”
Marc turned wearily from the door. “Just leave me alone,” he sighed. “Just let me sit down somewhere and relax. This is the first time in almost twenty-four hours that I haven’t had someone at my heels trying to kill me.”
“Poor Marc,” Toffee said. “You do need a rest.”
Marc started across the room toward a large leather-covered chair. He was nearly there when he caught his foot in the lamp cord and fell.
Even as he struck the floor he was aware of the crazy see-saw flashes of light traveling up and down the wall. It wasn’t until he rolled over, however, that he saw the lamp teetering precariously on the edge of the desk just above his head. He started to cry out, but before he could force the sound to his lips the lamp slipped beyond the edge and plunged downward. It seemed to explode in his face ...
IT grew out of the darkness, a place of familiar beauty. The light came slowly like the first faint tracings of dawn, etching the gentle slopes, the intricate, clustered outline of the forest.
Marc looked around at Toffee who was sitting beside him on the rise of the knoll. In the glowing half-light she was beautiful beyond words.
“I ought to break your thick skull,” she said. “Will you never learn to pick up those huge feet of yours?”
“Huh?” Marc said.
“Tripping over that damned cord just when we’d gotten away from them all. Big-footed oaf.”
“Oh, golly, that’s right,” Marc said. “We’re back in the valley.”
“You’re darned tootin’ we’re back in the valley,” Toffee said fretfully. “And that means it’s all over. No high-life, no snaky-dressed, and no...”
“There wouldn’t have been any of that anyway,” Marc put in hastily. “It’s just as well.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Toffee said with a sidelong glance. “All I needed was a few more minutes and...”
“What happened to your gadget?” Marc asked, changing the subject.
Toffee picked up the instrument from the grass beside her and shook it. It made a loose rattling sound.
“I broke it when I hit you over the head with it.” She tossed it away from her and it rolled down the slope and out of view. “It’s served its purpose.” She turned to Marc. “That is if you’ll just stop making people want to kill you.”
“I feel all dented and scratched,” Marc said. “But I guess I’m alright.”
“You’d feel more dented and scratched if I’d gotten ahold of you,” Toffee said. “For instance ...”
Suddenly she twined her arms around his neck and kissed him. For a moment Marc felt that he must have gotten mixed up with a metal clamp.
“Gee whiz!” he said as she released him.
“That’s just the beginning,” Toffee said. “I like to ease into these things. After that ...” She stopped as the light of the valley began to dwindle. “Oh, damn!”
Marc looked around at the valley in the rapidly diminishing light. A small pang of regret flickered deep inside him. He felt himself drifting off into the growing darkness.
“Goodbye, Toffee,” he whispered. “Goodbye.”
He felt the light caress of her hand on his cheek.
“So long, you lovely old reprobate,” Toffee said. “Don’t you dare forget me ...”
And then the darkness was complete and Toffee and the valley were gone in a swirling haze.
MARC stirred and there was a small thud beside him. He opened his eyes and looked around; the thud had been the lamp rolling off his chest. He forced himself to sit up.
There was just enough light from a small skylight above to see that Toffee was no longer there. He hadn’t really expected that she would be. He shook his head briefly to clear it. The memory of Julie and the others in the courtroom came to him.
He had to get out of there. He had to get home. He could wait there and explain things to Julie—somehow—when she returned. He got to his feet and gazed bleakly down the long, unshapely stretch of his own bare legs.
It wouldn’t do to go wandering around on the streets like that. Remembering that he had noticed a closet when he’d first entered the room, he made his way to it now and opened the door.
The only thing in the closet was the judge’s discarded black robe. Marc regarded it for a moment but nonetheless
took it off the hanger. It was much better than nothing. He slipped the robe on and crossed to the door leading into the hallway.
He unlocked the door and opened it. The hallway was deserted. It led toward the back of the building and outside. Marc quitted the room and quickly traced the hall to a set of outdoor steps leading down to a parking area. He started forward, then drew back as a figure appeared from around the far corner and made for one of the cars. Then suddenly he stopped as he realized that the figure was Julie and she was on her way to their blue convertible.
“Julie ...?” he called.
Julie, whirling about, caught sight of him and screamed at the top of her lungs. Having expressed herself thusly she leaped for the car, tore the door open and threw herself inside. Then, slamming the door and snapping the catch, she started fumbling feverishly in her bag for the keys.
Marc hastened down the steps and across the lot. He banged on the car door.
“Julie!” he cried, “Listen to me! I can explain about the girl. She was only helping me trap the congressman. She’s gone now. Julie, are you listening?”
Julie paused in her frenzied gropings and looked out at him. She lowered the window just a crack with an unnerved hand.
“Beat it, you—you apparition!” she quavered. “I can’t see you, I really can’t! So it’s no good your pretending you’re there. You’re not, and I know it. Go away!”
“Apparition?” Marc said. “I’m no apparition. Julie, it’s me—Marc!”
Julie’s gaze steadied a trifle. “You’re sure?” she asked. “You’re really there?”
“Of course I am. Let me in the car, please, dear.”
SHE hesitated, but in the end she opened the door, reached out gingerly and touched him. Then, with a smile of reassurance, she slid over to make room for him beside her.
“Oh, Marc!” she cried. “I’m so glad it’s you. I thought I saw you just sort of fade away in there and ... I guess I’ve been out of my mind, with worry.”
Marc reached out an arm and drew her close to him. “It’s all right, dear,” he said. “It’s all over now.”
“But the doctors said you had to be operated on. They said you were dying.”
“Oh, that,” Marc said hedging. “Well—that was just a gag, a trick to make the congressman expose himself. Where are the doctors now?”
“Asleep,” Julie said.
“Asleep?”
“Yes. It seems that one of them got excited and spilled a big can of chloroform on all three of them. They looked very relaxed when I left.”
“Probably needed the rest,” Marc said. “They seemed quite energetic.” He patted her shoulder. “So do we. Shall we go home?”
Julie nodded. Marc started the car.
“Marc ... ?”
“Yes, dear?”
“About that girl, the one with red hair. That was very silly of me, wasn’t it?”
“Silly?” Marc asked.
“The way I got it into my head that there was something between you two. That was silly, wasn’t it?”
“Very silly,” Marc said. “I don’t know how you ever thought of such a thing.” He turned and smiled at her. “But I forgive you.”
Julie moved closer. “Thank you, dear,” she murmured. “You’re very kind and understanding. Besides, if I’d just stopped to think about it I’d have realized she wasn’t the kind you’d ever give a second thought.”
Marc backed up the car and headed out of the lot. “Of course not, dear,” he said. A smile played at the corner of his lips as he gazed off into the distance. “Never a second thought ...”
George approached through the mists, his ectoplasm disheveled and drooping. As he moved toward the sentry station it was all too apparent that here was a shade in low spirits.
“George Pillsworth, spiritual part of the mortal Marc Pillsworth reporting in from leave,” he announced listlessly.
The sentry, a gross spectre of the lower sort, jutted his head out of the opening. “Hot dawg!” he said. “Wait’ll the Council gets a load of you!”
George looked up wearily. “What do you mean by that?” he asked.
“Just after you took off, word came through that Pillsworth was as hail and hearty as health biscuits. They’ve been waiting up for you ever since. Boy, are you in for a welcome!”
George shrugged and sighed heavily. “Back to the Moaning Chorus, I suppose?” he said.
“You know it, brother,” the sentry nodded, and leaning forward he swung the gates open in a wide gesture. “Pass on, George Pillsworth, spiritual part of the mortal Marc Pillsworth. Come and get it, kid.”
George drifted disconsolately through the gates and toward the Council Chambers which loomed large and formidable through the swirling mists ahead. Slowly, softly he began to hum to himself, a tune of great melancholy and gentle discord. He paused, hummed the tune again.
“Not bad,” he mused, “not bad at all. With a little arranging might go over big.”
Humming the tune again, he resumed toward the chambers. He shrugged, dusted his ectoplasm and smoothed it down.
Now that he stopped to think about it he was sort of relieved to be back. Certainly the Moaning Chorus couldn’t be any more exhausting than what he’d just gone through on Earth. And, coming right down to it, those humans down there were beginning to get a little spooky lately ...
THE LAUGHTER OF TOFFEE
Marc’s troubles began the moment Hotshot Harold planted the miracle elixir on him. Then came a bevy of cops—Toffee—and X-ray eyes ...
TO THE casual observer that morning Marc Pillsworth presented only the picture of a rather loose-jointed, yet constrained, businessman on his way to another orderly day at the office. One would hardly have guessed that he was striding forward into the first leg of a journey that was destined to take him on a shrieking, streaking sleigh ride of madness, frenzy and crime. Indeed, Marc himself would never have dreamed that such a thing was even possible.
The trouble was, of course, that this was the first day of spring. The world had finally shrugged itself free of winter and, with a toss of its golden curls, was unmistakably casting about for some sort of foolishness to get into. The sun was burgeoning bright in the sky, green things were intruding their heads impertinently through the warm soil along the sidewalks and the breezes, gentle and flirtatious, were fingering the voluminous skirts of the passing shop girls. ‘The inhabitants of the city, to the man, were feeling pleasantly silly in the head.
To the man, that is, except for Marc.
Marc, founder, president, guiding genius and devoted slave to the Pillsworth Advertising Agency, felt merely dyspeptic. Making his way past the shops with their blossoming window boxes, he loathed the spring. At the moment, in fact, there was only one thing that Marc loathed more than the spring and that was Mario Matalini, the eminent Italian portrait artist.
Marc had never before experienced jealousy and it came to him now as a singularly unpleasant sensation. For one thing, it gave him gas.
Though he had been married long enough to have achieved a certain complacency about matrimony in general, every time he thought of Julie and Mario alone at the country house, he automatically burped. Italians, it was said, were notoriously affected by cold blonde beauty, and Julie on occasion, resembled nothing so much as a tantalizing and unattainable angel carved from ice. It was a combination that was not reassuring.
The trip to the country, of course, had been Mario’s idea. It had come to him in a gaudy flash of inspiration the very evening Julie had commissioned him to do her portrait.
“Ah, Madonna Mia!” the mustachioed artist had crooned revoltingly. “You shall be my masterpiece! I can feel it now. There is the season of spring in your lovely face—the enigma, the withholding, the promise!” His dark eyes caressed her classic features, and he leaned forward abruptly. “I know!” he breathed. “I shall paint you surrounded by nature—on the very first day of spring! You will be like a goddess, with the new grasses and the first gr
een leaves everywhere around you!” He sighed delicately. “I have never done a portrait in this manner, but how can I confine such a subject to a dismal studio?” He smiled at Julie as though Marc were not even in the room. “It is true, is it not, that you own one of the handsomest country houses in the state?”
Marc had opened his mouth to protest, but Julie’s eyes were aglow with the vision of herself as a springtime goddess. The damage had been done and there was no patching it up.
The two of them had been at the country house for a week now, looking for the perfect setting for the portrait, waiting for the perfect day to begin it. With each passing day Marc had grown a bit uneasier. Of course Mr. Busby, the caretaker, made a splendid chaperon, but there was still something about Mario that just naturally put your teeth on edge.
Business had prevented his joining the pilgrimage to the country; the summer advertising campaigns, now in preparation, demanded the last measure of his personal attention. As an active guardian of his castle and his wife’s virtue, he found himself seriously hampered. With this dark thought looming in his mind, he burped anew and halted his officebound progress to enter a drug store. A man could hardly expect to retain his clients’ good will by belching in their faces.
INSIDE the store, he proceeded to the pharmacist’s counter at the rear. There, he found himself confronted by a balding, fastidious individual in a white jacket whose gaze was fastened tenaciously on the remarkable legs of the silken brunette who presided at the nearby cosmetics counter. As Marc cleared his throat, the man looked up with eyes that were gently bemused.
“Yes?” he inquired disinterestedly.
Marc leaned forward. “I need something for gas,” he said.
The druggist smiled blandly, but his gaze drifted back to the fascinating legs. “Grass?” he murmured dreamily. “Grass seed is at the front of the store.”
“Not grass,” Marc said. “I don’t want grass. ‘Gas’ is what I said.”
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 69
