TOFFEE TAKES A TRIP

By CHARLES F. MYERS

Marc Pillsworth decided he needed a
vacation—so he went on a trip. But where
Marc went, Toffee followed—with trouble.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Adventures July 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Glumly, situated in sandy discomfort, Marc Pillsworth watched as another blustering wave tripped, fell flat on its watery face, and embarrassedly dissolved into a foolish fringe of giggling froth. It was the sameness of the thing that was getting him down, the business of being constantly sold short on a promise of something interesting. He rolled carefully over, onto his stomach, which had, by now, become a bloody shade of vermillion, and transferred the sunny torture to his back, which had only reached a color, approximately that of tomato soup. Taken either way, front or back, and considering his bright yellow trunks, he was, as the biographers always say, a pretty colorful citizen. Also, as the biographers never say, he was a pretty dejected one.

With one slender finger he traced a circle in the gritty surface before him, then jabbed viciously into its center. There was something frightening, deliberate in the action, especially when it was known that, to Marc, the circle represented the eye of a rascally unknown writer of magazine articles. It seemed only a matter of time before he entered into the refreshing pastime of sticking pins into wax effigies. He didn't really wish the fellow any harm; only that he'd break his treacherous neck by next Saturday at the latest.

Marc was certain that on the eve of his last earthly day he would be able to point an enfeebled finger squarely at the present day and the three preceding it, and assuredly say, "That was the darkest period of my life." He didn't know which magazine article had planted the hideous idea of separate vacations in Julie's golden head, but he had already sworn violence, bloodshed, and even sudden death to its author if ever he found out. That a man should spend two weeks in a beach house without his wife was plainly, to him, a new and outstanding high in sheerest idiocy. He was only surprised that in a country so nearly glutted with legislation of all descriptions, there should be no laws to protect an unwary husband against the published oozings of so loathsomely promiscuous a mind as would endorse, and even encourage, the diabolical arrangement of separate vacations.

Ennui was setting in like a sort of spiritual rigor mortis. The first day, he had golfed and gotten sunburned, the second, he had ridden and gotten sunburned, and the third, he had fished and gotten sunburned. Now, in desperation, he was reducing the whole tortuous process to its primary element, and simply getting roasted to a flaming crisp with as little exertion as possible.

With eyes that were as optimistic as a slab in the morgue, he gazed up the face of the cliff, beyond the highway running along its edge, and to the beach house on the hill at the other side. It was just as he had supposed. There was no car out front ... no jaunty blue convertible ... and more to the point, no Julie. She hadn't changed her mind. He didn't know why he should think she would. It would serve her right, he thought spitefully, if Toffee chose this precise time to make a new entrance into his life.

He folded his hands before him and muzzled his chin into their hollow. He'd been too busy to give Toffee much thought lately, but now that she'd slipped into his consciousness, he found that he recalled her with curiously mixed feelings. Pleasure finally proved to be the strongest, however, and he began to smile for the first time in several days.

Lord knows there was proof enough of Toffee's existence ... almost too much ... but still it took an effort to realize that such a phenomenon could actually be. And Toffee was a phenomenon in every sense of the word ... even a few that wouldn't bear repeating. With her, it was a matter of "Out of sight, IN mind," and vice versa. A creation of Marc's imagination ... a lovely, vivacious phantom of his dreams ... she had seen fit on various occasions to materialize from his subconscious and uninvitedly play an active role in his everyday affairs. During the duller stretches of his life, she was apparently content to bide her time in the tranquil valley of his mind, but given a moment of high excitement, she was sure to materialize and gleefully build it into a full fledged crisis with free wheeling.

At first, Marc had found it difficult to believe he would ever become accustomed to this peculiar arrangement, but apparently he had, for now, as he thought of Toffee, it was not with awe of the curious circumstance under which she existed, but rather with an almost wistful loneliness for the girl, herself. It was true, he realized, that pandemonium could not be far behind with Toffee on the threshold, but he couldn't help the feeling that his current doldrums could do with a dash of her particular brand of redheaded chaos like a man in a death chamber could do with a shiny new, cross-cut file. It was just as he had come to this decision that alien voices broke through the delicate wall of his quiet, introspective mood, and left it shattered beyond recall.

His head darted up, and his hand raked back a disordered shock of hair that had fallen over his brow. Thus uncovered, his eyes, two charred embers projected through the throbbing sheet of flame that was his face, strained upward, to the top of the cliff, in search of the noisy intruders. Usually no one ever came to this particular beach, except himself, and he had come to think of it as exclusively his own. But if he were preparing to relinquish his solitude to a band of vapid, would-be bathers, he was quite, quite mistaken, for much to the contrary, at the head of the crude board stairway leading down to the tiny beach, there stood two of the most unlikely homo sapiens he had ever seen. They looked like the culls of a dyspeptic nightmare.

The man was short, stocky, mostly bald, and at the moment, extremely animated. But the woman at his side was another matter entirely. Nearly six feet tall, an almost ghostly figure without a trace of color, she was a cruel and unconditional triumph of plainness. Worse than a horse of another color, she was a horse without any color at all. It was hard to believe that blood, rather than water—or perhaps acid—ran in her veins. She was listening intently to what the little man was saying, but there was something clearly argumentative in the inclination of her raw-boned, equine body.

"But I tell you he's done it!" the little man wailed.

"But I tell you," the woman trumpeted authoritatively, "It just isn't possible. The old fool couldn't! It won't work!"

"You'll see! You'll see!" the little man piped in a voice that was becoming increasingly mindful of an amusement pier calliope. "He's done it!"

And suddenly turning, he started down the rickety flight of steps as fast as his hammy little legs could carry him. He seemed almost to jitter along them as he sped downward, his bald pate glistening nervously in the bright afternoon sun. The faded woman, apparently still partially unconvinced, hung back for a moment, gazing icily after him. Then suddenly, with a for-better-or-worse but I bet it'll-be-worse shrug of her mammoth shoulders, she decided to follow. Awkwardly, like a runaway beer wagon, she began jolting down the steps, two at a time. The ancient board creaked a feeble threat, but didn't make it good.

Marc, watching this baffling performance with open-faced curiosity, rolled over and boosted himself into an upright position, so as to have a better view of it. Whoever these newcomers were, and whatever they had come there for, he was inclined to regard them as a blessing, no matter how shabbily disguised. Anything that happened now was bound to be a relief from the endless monotony of the last few days. After all, the newcomers might be members of some wayward, secret cult, come here for a sort of pagan ritual. It was a good deal to hope for, and hardly likely, but his jaded mind clutched hungrily at the idea.

Now on the beach, the two principal actors in whatever drama was about to be performed, moved swiftly past the rock behind which Marc rested and raced purposefully to the left. This only lent further intrigue to the affair since such a course, if followed to it's ultimate end, could only lead them crashingly against a further wall of the cliff. And considering the rate at which the pair were traveling, such a collision seemed altogether probable ... even imminent. Eagerly, Marc jack-knifed forward to keep them in sight.

But about half way to the wall, the little man skidded to a disordered stop and pointed a chubby finger toward a large rock that jutted straight and tall from the sands, like a staunch sentinel standing guard. "That one'll do," she shrilled, and to Marc's bitter disappointment, disappeared behind the boulder's shielding bulk. The woman, still reluctant, paused at the rock's edge.

"It won't work," she insisted. But her voice had now lost some of its authority. She followed her companion into the obscurity behind the rock.

Marc would have given his immortal soul, along with his only copy of Forever Amber, to have known what it was that was not going to work behind that boulder. He felt meanly cheated. He felt that the intruders, like the waves, had led him to expect great things, then deliberately let him down. For a moment he knew what it was to be a trusting chorus girl who had been promised jewels, only to find, by the morning's depressing light, that she had received only a hangover and a pair of cheap stockings. He knew what it was to—

Then, suddenly, he only knew panic as a tremendous explosion grasped the little beach and shook it like a limp dishrag. Rocks, dislodged from the face of the cliff, began to fall everywhere through churning, sand-laden air. Marc wasn't bored any more. He clutched the rock at his side with all the zeal of an impassioned suitor back home after a three-year absence on a desert island. His attitude clearly intimated that he loved that rock dearly and nothing would ever part him from it. Something that was not a rock landed thuddingly at his side, but he was too distracted to notice.

"Earthquake!" he gasped.

The sudden, nerve-shattering blast turned the world upside down, and the woman along with it.

"Earthquake, my left eye!" a voice grunted thickly. And Marc's head snapped about to find the ghostly woman looking up at him with startled eyes. She had exchanged locations with amazing rapidity. Lying on her stomach, arms, legs, and hair in a distressing state of disarray, she looked like nothing so much as a bloodless witch who had suffered a rather devastating crash landing. Certainly, she had descended as from the heavens, and yet, one glance told you that her association was certainly not with things astral. With stunning directness, she parted bluish lips and spat an impossible quantity of sand onto the beach where it looked much more natural.

Marc shrank back suspiciously. Perhaps it wasn't the gallant thing to do, but it seemed prudent. "What ... what happened?" he asked timidly.

"How should I know?" the woman asked bitterly, beginning an unconcerned inventory of her various parts. "I was too busy getting away from it to notice." Then, pummeling an embarrassingly intimate region with vigorous enthusiasm, she seemed to come to the comforting conclusion that she had passed through her ordeal still in possession of all she had started out with. Just why this should mean anything to her, Marc could not fathom. It seemed to him that any change, willy-nilly, could hardly miss being an improvement. No matter what ever happened to the woman, it could never be any worse than the awful trouncing that nature had already given her. She got stiffly to her feet and peered cautiously over the rock.

"Holy mother!" she breathed. "They're gone like a maiden's illusions!"

"What?" Marc asked. "What's gone?"

"The rock," the woman replied with dismaying heartiness, "and Mr. Epperson. He's gone too." Obviously, these missing items had been listed in the order of their importance.

"You ... you mean the little fellow? He's dead?" Marc asked shakily.

"Exceptionally so, I should say," the woman replied almost gleefully. "Look for yourself."

Marc accepted the invitation reluctantly, and peered around the edge of the rock with eyes that were only partly open. Then he gasped with amazement. It wasn't that there was so much to see, but rather that there was so little. Certainly, there was no sign of the rock or the little man. In the spot where they should have been, however, there was a deep hole in the sand that looked much like the work of a sizable dredger. Around this, there seemed to linger a sort of undefined gaseous body.

"Where ... where is he ... the little man, I mean!" he asked hesitantly.

"I told you," the woman replied impatiently. "He's gone."

"But his ... his remains? Where are they?"

"Vaporized, most likely," the woman answered airily, as though explaining a self-evident mathematical rule to a not-too-bright child.

"Vaporized?" The word seemed meaningless when applied to human bodies.

"Certainly. Those gases you see out there are all that's left of him."

Marc stared at the illusive last remains of Mr. Epperson, and shuddered.

"A noisy way to go," the woman reflected philosophically, "but nice and clean." She seemed to be speaking of an experiment that had turned out with surprising success. "He was a dirty little pest anyway. I never did like having him around." She smiled and it was no improvement. "I'll bet it's the first time anyone's ever gone to heaven with a rock ... if he went there at all."

"What happened to him? What did it?"

The woman regarded Marc thoughtfully for a time and seemed to come to a decision. She reached into the pocket of her grimy skirt and drew forth a minute, white capsule. She held it out for his inspection. "See that?" she asked.

"Just barely," Marc answered truthfully. "It's awfully small."

"And awfully powerful," the woman went on with dramatic emphasis. "That's what did it. Anyway, it was one just like that."

"What is it? What's it made of?"

"I don't know for sure," the woman replied. "It might be anything ... even common dirt. It doesn't matter. The point is that whatever it is, it's been charged so that when it's exposed to air, it just naturally blows everything around it all to hell and gone. Mr. Epperson opened the other one, and I guess that's why he was vaporized. I ducked around the rock just in time."

"But that's impossible!" Marc protested.

"I know it," the woman said flatly. "It's as impossible as a three dollar bill. But it works, just the same. Look what it did to old Eppy!"

Marc winced. He couldn't help the feeling that nothing good could come from such blatant familiarity with the dead. "Where did you get those things?" he asked, changing the subject.

"They're the brain child of a certain Dr. Herrigg," the woman replied. "I always thought there was something offside about the old crow, and now that I know it, I'm going...."

Suddenly, she was interrupted by a nasty cracking sound, and Marc quickly took up his old courtship with the rock, lest it be the overture to another explosion. He sensed, rather than saw or heard, the woman dropping to his side.

"What was that?" he whispered. Then he turned to the woman and started back in horror. She was lying face-down in the sand, and the hole at the base of her skull was clearly visible. The matter of the fluid running in her veins was settled beyond all argument; it was blood.

Blindly following a first impulse, Marc leaped to his feet to see where the shot had come from. He regretted it almost instantly. No sooner had he gotten on eye level with the top of the rock, than there was a second cracking sound and a bullet whined viciously past his ear, like a great, lethal gnat. He hugged the rock again, wondering incongruously if he were to spend the rest of his life in a crouching position. It seemed such a vulgar position in which to die. In the brief moment of his exposure, he had seen a small, grey-haired figure, with a pointed, sharp-featured face, and a gun to match. The sight had done much to shake Marc's confidence in his own future. Indeed, he imagined that this, approximately, was what the mystery writers were referring to when they mentioned a "tight spot." And the sound of footsteps descending the stairway convinced him that his own personal spot was swiftly becoming downright constricting. His eyes, wide and wild, frantically ran the length of the beach.

There was only one choice, and it was a dismally unknown quantity. Cut off from the stairway, he would have to crawl along the base of the bluff in the opposite direction, keeping down behind the covering rocks as well as he could. He wasn't sure just where such a path might lead, but it held one feature that appealed to him over-whelmingly; it would at least put a distance between himself and the man with the gun, who's deadly acquaintance he was reticent to make.

By the time Marc had come to the end ... the dead end ... of his tortuous path, his knees, with a trim of parsley, would easily have made an attractive addition to even the best butcher's display. Still crouching, he drew himself stiffly up, and sat down on a flat rock to inspect his damaged joints. Finally satisfied that they had not been worn all the way through, no matter how much they felt like it, he gave his attention over to the situation at hand. It looked hopeless.

To his left, and in front of him, there was nothing but ocean; to his right, a grey-haired killer; and directly behind him, the sheer, stony face of the cliff. There was nothing to do but hope for the best ... in spite of an insistent feeling that the best would be none too good. He picked up a loose stone and regarded it bleakly. Compared to the gun he'd glimpsed on the beach, it looked loathsomely harmless.

Marc couldn't have said exactly how long he'd been sitting there, looking like an unhappy throw-back to the stone age, but the afternoon light had already begun to fade from the sky, and the rock in his hand had become heavy. He guessed it was about an hour. Why hadn't the man followed him? He gazed toward the darkening sea, and fished vainly for some meaning, some key, to the afternoon's events. In them there had been surprise and danger, but over it all, there had also been the discoloring shadow of unreality. He began to wonder if it hadn't all been just a delusion born of over-exposure to the sun. After all, during the summer months, fried brains weren't the exclusive property of the local restaurant owner. They were anybody's, just for the basking.

Somewhat bolstered by this possibility, but still wary, Marc stood up and peered apprehensively over the shielding barrier of rocks. There was no sound, no movement, anywhere. Hesitantly, still crouching, but not on his hands and knees this time, he started back. In spite of a halting, stop-and-go progress, it was only a matter of five minutes before he was back on the beach proper. Just before he reached the point where he had abandoned the body of the nameless woman, he stopped again, longer this time. Finally, like a man about to plunge into a pool of iced water, he sucked in his breath and stepped resolutely around the side of the rock. Then he stopped short. The body was gone.

When he'd recovered sufficiently from this surprise, he gazed uneasily over the top of the rock to the main part of the beach. It was utterly deserted. Outside of the still missing stone, it was just as he had first seen it that day. He shrugged and started toward the stairway. Sun-stroke or whatever, forces had obviously been at work that were hopelessly beyond his comprehension.

He climbed the complaining stairs, crossed the deserted road, and made his way up the path to the beach house.

For a moment, as he looked at the small, streamlined dwelling, his earlier mood of loneliness was sharply recalled to him. It was a place meant for parties and gaiety and carefree companionship. Without these things, it seemed rejected and forlorn; like a lovely, giddy girl dressed for a ball and left waiting by a heartlessly indifferent beau. He forced the feeling aside and hurried on.

Finding the door open, just as he had left it, he stepped inside and started to close it against the growing chill of the evening. His hand started forward, then froze in mid-air. Behind him, in the dimness of the tiny reception hall, he'd heard a faint rustling sound, and swung quickly about. But not soon enough. Instantly, something cold, hard, and as decisive as a tombstone, struck him across the side of the head. The room began to spin deliriously.

'Round and 'round the little room traveled, until it had become nothing more than a dizzy, churning whirlpool. For a moment Marc teetered precariously on its brink, then suddenly caught in its expanding tide, lost his footing and plunged downward.

Spiraling helplessly toward the center of the whirling, fluid cylinder, he could see that its center was dark, and he was frightened. He tried to fight the dragging current, but it was no use. Next, he was caught in that darkness, and was spinning dizzily downward, faster and faster, like a great, human pinwheel.

Marc had lost all sense of time before his frantic journey was ended. It might have lasted a split second or an hour. He didn't know. But when it was over, he was grateful. Landing flat on his stomach, he lay perfectly still for a time, his eyes closed. Curiously, now that he had come to rest, a strange feeling of contentment was slowly creeping over him. He didn't know where he was, but he was glad to be there.

Turning slowly over, swinging his long legs before him, he opened his eyes and gazed about. At first he was blinded by a bright light that seemed to come from everywhere. A bit at a time, however, his surroundings began to swim into view. He discovered, piece-meal, that he was in an immense room; apparently some sort of filing room, for the walls, on every side, were lined to a distant ceiling with business-like filing cabinets. Against the opposite wall stood a metal ladder that was fastened at its base to a track that stretched evenly around the room. He still couldn't discover where the light was coming from, but it was bluish and very bright.

"Hello," a voice said softly above him, and Marc, glancing up, thought it sounded vaguely familiar. He was right. Perched on the uppermost rung of the ladder, and dangling a pair of scandalously perfect legs, sat Toffee. Clothed, as always before, only in a scrap of transparent, emerald colored material, her figure was being shockingly frank about its own perfection. It seemed almost conceited in its exciting loveliness. She smiled roguishly and her green eyes sparkled through the distance. There was a quick flash of red hair as she swung about and started down the ladder.

"You would come just when I'm busiest," she scolded happily, swinging easily from step to step. "I should have known it. When could I ever expect any consideration from the likes of you?"

Rather than enter into preposterous argument with his own senses, Marc admitted that she was actually there, before him. He knew by now that he would have to sooner or later, anyway. "Busy?" he asked with as matter-of-fact a voice as he could manage. "Busy with what?"

"Your files, of course," Toffee replied lightly, jumping with kittenish softness to the floor, disdainful of the last three steps. "This is the end of the year for you, mentally."

"What files?"

"Didn't you see the sign when you came in?"

"The way I came in," Marc replied sourly, "I didn't see anything."

"Oh, of course not," Toffee agreed. "Just looking down that way and seeing you here all of a sudden, I forgot for a moment that you were from outside. Well, just so you'll know, this is the Miscellaneous Information chamber of your mind. You've never been here before. You've only seen the valley of your mind." She smiled demurely. "I guess you're just naturally drawn to wherever I happen to be. But I do wish you'd seen the sign. It's an idea I got from outside, in your world. It's all lit up with mental impulses ... just like neon. It's really beautiful."

Marc winced. That his mind might someday become a mental replica of Broadway was the most repulsive idea he'd had to face in weeks. Toffee would be setting up a chain of "Grey Matter" hot dog stands next. "Miscellaneous Information?" he asked, uncertainly.

"Yes," Toffee said, with the professional air of a paid guide giving a fifty cent tour. "In a year's time, you pick up more odd facts and figures than you think. If they were left lying around, your mind would look like a city dump. So at the end of every fiscal year, it's my job to gather them all together and file them alphabetically under topic headings. Then, it's always here when you need it, unless it's too out of date. See what I mean?"

Marc nodded slowly. "I guess so," he said, and his voice was laden with uncertainty. "But don't you think it's a little creepy?"

"Nonsense!" Toffee cried, dismissing the idea. Then her smile suddenly faded and her eyes became hard. "And while we're on the subject," she said menacingly, "there's something I'd like to ask you."

"What's that?"

Turning to a small table nearby, she picked up a stiff white card, and flipped it angrily under his nose. "Just you tell me," she demanded hotly, "How you happened to pick up the bust measurements of the entire Gaities chorus!"

Marc's expression was one of utter stupification for a moment, then it relaxed. "Oh, that!" he exclaimed with false heartiness.

"Yes, that!" Toffee echoed ruthlessly, placing one hand on a smooth hip.

"That's easy to explain," Marc went on quickly. "It all had to do with the advertising agency. We handled some ads for the Gaities."

"Ads?" Toffee sneered. "You mean they advertise things like that!"

"Well, no. Not exactly. It was really the show that we advertised."

"What a show it must be!" Toffee exclaimed sarcastically. "That Miss Flare La Greer must be a fair sensation every time she sets foot on a runway. With measurements like that, I wonder that there's any room left for the rest of them."

"Don't be vulgar," Marc put in without hope.

"If you ask me," Toffee said icily, "it's that La Greer moll that's being vulgar. She was born vulgar." Then her smile suddenly appeared as unexpectedly as a sunburst in the middle of a rain storm. "But if it's the way you say," she cooed, "I guess I'll just have to forgive you. Now let's say hello properly." She stretched her arms out toward Marc, and made quick, beckoning motions with her hands.

Marc was instantly on his feet. Of all the censorable things in the world, experience had taught him that Toffee's interpretation of a proper greeting would probably head the list. "Get away from me!" he yelped, backing into a filing case. "Stay mad! Hate me! Don't start that old stuff, or I'll...."

"Or you'll what?" Toffee asked wickedly, sliding her slender arms smoothly around his neck.

It may have been Toffee's kiss that started the room spinning. Marc didn't know, and somehow, try as he would, he couldn't seem to make himself care. At any rate, it was spinning, and gaining speed at every turn. In a moment, it was whirling like a thing possessed, and Marc could feel himself being lifted easily upward. He opened his eyes and looked out with dismay. It was as though they had been caught in the very center of a gigantic tornado. Caught, just as he had been in the whirlpool only a moment before.

"Wow!" Toffee cried gleefully, her arms clasped tenaciously about his neck. "What a kiss!"

Marc groaned and rolled over. Then, lest it fall off, he clutched his head in his hands, and sat up. Instantly, he experienced a feeling that was like having several gross of heavy-duty ice picks driven into the base of the skull, just behind the left ear. He groaned again and tried to guess where he might be, but his mind, still in a state of churning confusion, would not be prodded into an answer. It was as limp and uninterested as an old, worn glove. He was surrounded by a brooding, unbroken darkness, and for a moment thoughts of coffins and coal bins chased each other unrelentingly over his tired brain. Then, experimentally, he reached a cautious hand into the blackness, and then quickly shrank back.

The touch of soft, cool flesh was not precisely what he had expected. Neither was he expecting the slap that was soundly administered across the bridge of his nose only a split second later.

"And don't tell me you were just looking for a match, either!" an irate feminine voice rasped. "I'll teach you to come pawing around me!"

"Toffee!"

"Marc!"

Immediately, two slender arms were about his neck, and Toffee was contritely saying, "I'm sorry Marc. I didn't know it was you. It didn't feel like you."

"How should you know how I feel?" Marc asked annoyedly, trying to disentangle himself from her insistent embrace. "Do you always have to say a thing so it sounds lecherous? Where did you come from, anyway?"

"I've materialized from your mind again," Toffee replied gaily, happy at the achievement. "You submerged into your subconscious and dreamed me up a moment ago, so naturally I just dropped everything and returned to consciousness with you. What kind of a mess have you gotten into this time?"

"Mess?"

"Yes. There must be something wrong or you wouldn't have been around bothering me. You never do come around," she added fretfully, "unless something's gone wrong." She patted his hand. "It's because you're such a low type, I guess."

"Holy smoke!" Marc cried, suddenly remembering the day's odd adventures. "You're right. Things are plenty wrong. I was ambushed!"

"Oh, no!" Toffee cried. "How terrible! You're so young!"

"I was hit over the head," Marc added flatly.

"Oh," Toffee breathed with relief. "Where are we?"

Marc had already gotten to his feet and was fumbling along the wall. "I'm on vacation," he said through a dark distance. "We're at the beach house."

"Where's Julie?" Toffee asked with a tinge of apprehension, remembering that Julie, on other occasions, hadn't been precisely cordial.

"She's visiting her mother at the farm," Marc replied shortly. "She read an article about separate vacations."

"Craziest thing I ever heard," Toffee pronounced bluntly. "What are you doing, sanding that wall?"

"I'm looking for the light switch," Marc explained. "It's right by the stairway closet as I remember."

His hand, running out of wall, began fishing absently about in a narrow open space. "I think I've found the closet," he called reassuringly. Then, strangely, he was aware that the space had begun to widen, almost automatically it seemed. He guessed that the door was swinging open of its own volition, and attributed the phenomenon to faulty construction. He made a mental note to check the door in the morning. But what happened a second later could hardly have been explained by structural discrepancies. With truly alarming ferocity, two unidentified arms were flung about his waist, and caught off guard, he was carried crashingly to the floor. The darkness became alive with the sounds of conflict.

"Cut it out, Toffee!" Marc yelled, struggling wildly to free himself, and getting hopelessly entangled. "Try to restrain yourself! This is no time for playing games!"

"I'm perfectly restrained," Toffee called back suspiciously. "And who's playing games ... and what kind of games? I'm just waiting for the lights."

"Then who's this on top of me?" Marc wailed, cagily fighting his way into a position that left him completely impotent against his unseen attacker.

"Why don't you ask him?" Toffee suggested helpfully through a jumble of scuffling, gasping sounds. "I'm sure I don't know." Swiftly, she started in search of the illusive light switch herself.

"I don't think he's interested in formal introductions," Marc wheezed with what sounded like a dying gasp. "Hurry and get those lights on before he kills me. He's strangling me!"

As though in instant answer to his command, the room suddenly blazed with light, and Marc, seeing his assailant, almost nose to nose, turned deathly pale. His eyes snapped lightly shut, and turning his head to one side, his lips began to move feverishly, although his voice seemed to have deserted him. On his chest, face down, and in an immodest state of disorder, lay the lifeless figure of the woman on the beach.

Toffee gazed wrathfully on this grotesque display, and the usual hand moved threateningly to the usual hip. "Well, you might at least have the decency to stop whispering to her!" she hissed contemptuously. "The lights are on, you know! I can see you! I'm not blind!" She paused for a moment, and seeing no change in the distressing tableau, went on. "Tell that shameless wench to get up and get out of here! You never miss a chance do you? The minute the lights go out, you've got to be frisking about on the carpet!"

With a tremendous effort, Marc partly opened one eye and looked pleadingly up at her. He managed to force out a few wretched words. "She's ... she's not a ... a shameless wench," he whispered half-hysterically. "She's ... she's a ... a ... a body!"

"I can see that for myself!" Toffee retorted hotly. "And not such a hot one, either, if you ask me. Now, tell her to gather up her flabby old body and drag it out that door, before I practice violence on it. Don't just lie there staring up at me like a wall-eyed clam!"

"But ... but she can't!"

"Sodden drunk, eh?"

"No. She ... she's a dead body." Marc's voice suddenly broke through its bonds and came back with unexpected force. "She's been shot!" he roared. "Get her off me before I lose my mind!"

The angry fire of suspicion flickered one last time in Toffee's eyes, then went out. She leaned down for a better look at the smothering figure. "How sinister!" she breathed.

"Don't waste time on adjectives!" Marc entreated. "Just get the horrible thing off me!"

Toffee forced a slender hand to the woman's shoulder, and with an incongruously dainty gesture rolled it from the distraught Marc. "It makes my spine fairly tingle," she said.

"What do you think it's done to mine?" Marc asked reproachfully, getting to his feet and rubbing the injured section.

Toffee continued to stare at the discarded body. "I do think you could have shown better taste in your choice of victims," she mused. "It couldn't have been a crime of passion, or passion isn't everything I've heard it is." Having satisfied herself on this point, she turned brightly to Marc. "Why did you shoot her?" she asked with honest curiosity.

"I didn't shoot her," Marc denied stoutly. "I only saw it done ... down on the beach."

"Then what's that gun doing here?" Toffee asked, pointing to the corner.

Marc forced himself to pick up the revolver. It looked like the one he'd seen on the beach. Obviously, whoever had hit him, hadn't meant to kill him. It would have been so much easier to have shot him. "Someone's trying to frame me," he said, as though trying to explain this fact to himself.

"I don't blame them," was Toffee's prompt reply. "You're quite a picture in those yellow trunks. They set your sunburn off like a keg of dynamite."

"But what am I going to do with that body?" Marc asked, ignoring the irrelevant criticism. "If it's found here, they'll lock me up forever."

Toffee thoughtfully chewed a thumbnail. "You might try giving it to someone," she said pensively. "There must be just lots of people who are simply dying to have a body all their own. A person with an ingenuity at all could probably find all kinds of uses for it."

"Stop driveling," Marc broke in curtly. "And try to think of something useful. I'll try to get it back in the closet, then I'll have to change clothes. We'll decide what to do about it afterwards."

"You asked me," Toffee reminded him. "I don't suppose the woman really cares much what you do with her body. After all, she hasn't much use for it any more. And it wasn't really such a good one to begin with. I'm sure I wouldn't care what people did with mine."

"You never did," Marc snapped, and summoning the courage born of necessity, he lifted the figure reluctantly to his shoulder. "You have no modesty. And please don't go on like that about bodies. It's indecent."

"It's no more indecent than you in those trunks," Toffee retorted.

Marc propped the body in the closet and quickly closed the door.

"With legs like yours," Toffee went on, "I wouldn't even take a bath for consideration of the poor peeping Toms, much less go out on the beach where innocent women and children might see the things. They're horrible."

Marc had ignored the insult as long as he could. "What's wrong with my legs?" he asked woundedly.

"They're skinny," Toffee said, thoughtfully taking stock, "and hairy. They look like a couple of twisted pipe cleaners ... dirty pipe cleaners. They also turn the stomach and wither the soul."

"That's enough!" Marc yelled reddening. "Hereafter, I'll thank you to leave my pipe clean ... my legs out of this. Just try to forget that I even have legs at all."

"Gladly," was the obliging reply. "I'll just pretend to myself that you're staggering about on hooks."

Blanching, Marc strove to restore his sense of dignity. He drew himself up to his full height, some six feet, two inches, and started regally up the stairs. With the gun still in his hand, he looked like a noble suicider. "I'll return," he said frigidly, "after I've put on some trousers." Then he stopped and regarded Toffee's transparent tunic with slow deliberation. "And while we're on the subject," he added quietly. "You might just try to do something about your own nakedness. It's revolting!"

Marc pulled on a discreetly colorful sport jacket and glanced at himself in the mirror. With the exception of a worried expression, everything he wore was in neat, conservative good taste. He sighed, left the room.

Downstairs, he crossed the reception hall, careful to give the closet a wide berth, and made his way into the darkened living room. He felt his way to a floor lamp and turned it on. Immediately, a bright circle of light spread over the thick carpet like ink through a blotter. Noting this common phenomenon without interest, he turned away, then stopped as the door at the opposite end of the room opened. Toffee, resplendent in a cunning arrangement of the dining room drapes, moved sinuously into the room with all the unconscious grace of a stalking panther.

The drapes, a bold flowery design on a background of white, had been fashioned into a bare midriff evening gown of truly provocative design. The two parts, obviously disdainful of each other, contrived to leave a maximum of midriff, while doing little or nothing toward covering their assigned portions. The skirt was widely split at one side, exposing an exquisite leg, like a diamond in a show case. Toffee's nod to decency had been most perfunctory indeed.

"Like it?" she asked, smiling radiantly. "You'd never dream that it used to cover windows, would you?"

"I'd never dream it ever covered anything," Marc replied amazedly. "And if it ever had any ambitions along those lines, they're certainly shot now."

"It was just an idea I had," Toffee replied proudly.

"In night clubs all over the country," Marc commented dryly. "Thousands of girls have that same idea three times nightly, only they get paid for their nakedness ... or hauled into night court by the decency squad."

Fortunately, any further discussion of Toffee's "creation" was suddenly forestalled by the unexpected sound, from outside, of tires leaving pavement and turning grindingly onto gravel. Marc and Toffee ran swiftly to the window, where they vied athletically for a view of the drive; each for his own separate reason. Marc was having nightmarish visions of Julie, returned with a changed mind to share the remainder of his vacation. Toffee only knew that any addition, at this moment, was bound to be an interesting one.

"It's a man!" she breathed happily.

"Thank heaven," Marc sighed relievedly, then on second thought added, "Good grief!"

An instant later, a knock sounded at the front door and Toffee started eagerly toward the hall. "I'll let him in," she said over her shoulder.

"Don't!" cried Marc. "What about the thing in the closet?"

"Oh, that!" Toffee called back airily. "We'll have him hang his hat on a lamp or something." She continued toward the door.

"Stop!" Marc yelled commandingly.

And Toffee opened the door.

A lanky rustic, replete with drooping mustache and high heeled boots gazed unbelievingly at the dream-like creature that had opened the door to him. And a great, wistful sadness came into his eyes. "I'm Morton Miller," he drawled with a voice that so perfectly completed the homespun picture it was hard to believe he hadn't arrived by stage coach.

"It could be worse," Toffee consoled, obviously in serious doubt of her own statement.

"I'm the sheriff," the fellow elaborated.

Marc and Toffee exchanged a glance that was a silent, two-way scream.

"You got a body, lady?"

"You ought to know," Toffee replied, snatching furtively after her retreating composure. "You've hardly taken your eyes off it."

The sheriff cleared his throat and his voice dug its toe awkwardly into a hay stack. "No, lady," he said nervously. "That ain't what I mean. I'm lookin' fer a dead body."

"We don't have any," Toffee lied promptly, as though speaking of termites.

"That's funny," the sheriff mused chattily, now on firmer ground. "A fella called me on the phone and said a woman'd been shot out here."

Marc swiftly joined them. He knew that the wheels of calamity had inexorably begun to turn. He could almost hear them grinding.

"What fellow?" Toffee was asking.

"Don't rightly know. Wouldn't give his name. Had a sort of whiney voice, as I recollect. Sounded kinda goofy."

"He was goofy," Marc put in flatly. "Goofy as they come. No one's been shot here yet." Then, starting toward the door, he added, "Goodnight."

"Just a minute," the sheriff said, placing a mammoth foot firmly on the doorsill. "I gotta look around. It's my duty." He eyed Marc suspiciously. "And just who are you?"

"I'm Marc Pillsworth," Marc said almost ashamedly. "This is my place."

The sheriff nodded, pushed the door open, and stepped authoritatively inside. Obviously, this was one arm of the law that had a well developed muscle, if not much else. "Always like to have the owner around, when I'm ransackin' fer a body," he said cryptically. "Usually find that's the bird that hid 'er there."

"You're making a mistake," Toffee objected weakly.

"Maybe," the sheriff replied composedly. Then he pointed to the closet. "First things first," he said with thread-bare philosophy. "What's in there?"

"Nothing," Toffee replied with desperate casualness. "It's just an empty closet."

In an attempt at simulated innocence, Toffee had managed to look completely like a Borgia, caught with her cyanide showing. Morton Miller gazed briefly on this laughable performance, and started wordlessly toward the closet. Toffee followed quickly after him.

"Maybe you're right," she said with a surprising reversal of attitude. "You really ought to look around, and satisfy yourself that everything's all right. We wouldn't want you to go away feeling frustrated you know."

She stepped lightly in front of him and opened the closet door.

"It's pretty dark in there," the sheriff complained. "Ain't there a light?"

Toffee nodded. "It's loose," she explained. "I couldn't reach it to tighten it. But I'll bet you can. You're so tall, and all." She pointed to one of the closet's darkest corners. "It's back there."

The sheriff, a determined man if anything, followed the suggestion blindly, and moved into the inner darkness of the tiny compartment. Never had a man looked so much like a lamb going trustingly to slaughter.

It happened just as Toffee had hoped it would. No sooner was the sheriff in the closet than she slammed the door and turned the key standing ready in its lock. It may even be that she closed the door a bit before the sheriff was fully inside, for there had been an undignified slapping sound that implied as much. Either way, however, the deed done, she turned breathlessly to Marc.

"Let's get out of here!" she cried. "You've been framed like a museum masterpiece."

Marc, too stunned to quite grasp the situation, stared at her blankly.

"What did you do with the gun?" Toffee went on.

"It's upstairs, on my bed," he murmured, gazing unbelievingly at the closet door.

The atmosphere within the closet was swiftly becoming agitated. A series of formidable thudding sounds was suddenly followed by a shriek that sounded like a fast freight going through a rural junction at midnight.

"I think the sheriff's found the body," Toffee commented dryly. "Well, it's what he was after, and he can't say we didn't do our best to help him. Let's get out of here. If he keeps that up, he'll wake the dead."

To Marc the remark seemed singularly ill-timed. Shudderingly, as he followed Toffee out the door, he tried not to think of the grim goings-on inside the darkened closet.

The car swerved crazily, missed the oncoming truck by a sickeningly narrow margin, and sped on down the highway, followed by a shower of rare and salty expletives, recited with great sincerity by a truck driver who was undisputedly a master of spicy invective.

"I thought you knew how to drive," Marc moaned, moving his hands slowly away from his eyes.

"There's nothing to it," Toffee bragged, pressing the accelerator to the floor.

"There certainly isn't, the way you do it," Marc replied coldly. "You just step on the starter and, zoom!, before you know it, you're resting quietly in the morgue. It's a dandy arrangement if you have a passion for morgues. It just happens that I haven't."

"Nonsense!" Toffee cried. "You worry too much. A child could do it!"

"I'd rather a child did," Marc sighed defeatedly. "I'd feel safer."

"Watch this!" Toffee cried happily. And she started swinging the wheel recklessly from side to side so that the car careened deliriously back and forth, across the road. "There's no end to the fun you can have in a car!"

"Oh, yes there is!" Marc cried, clinging desperately to the door handle. "And ours should take place within the next ten seconds, if I'm any judge!"

"You're so morbid minded," Toffee complained.

Then, at the last possible moment, she swung the car sharply into a side road, and the evening stillness was hastily dispatched to the realm of memory by a shrieking protest from the tortured tires.

"Holy smoke!" yelled Marc. "If the sheriff isn't after us by now, the highway patrol must be."

Toffee didn't answer. She was too busy regaining a lost foothold on the accelerator. Marc noted with relief that the new road was deserted. At least she couldn't kill any innocent bystanders here. There was still a chance that manslaughter wouldn't be added to the list of their crimes.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"How should I know?" Toffee replied toughly, from the side of her mouth. "Where do people go when they're making a getaway?"

"You don't have to talk like a gun moll," Marc admonished, and suddenly he was overcome with the hopelessness of the situation. It seemed that fate had gone out of its way to find new confusions for complicating his life. If things had been too monotonously simple only a few hours before, now they were too hecticly complex. They had gone far beyond his capacity for such things. Through it all, Marc was wishing that Julie were there to console and advise him, as she had so often in the past. It was only a matter of a moment before he was lost deep in a reverie in which only the stillness of the night, his wife and himself existed. The car began to lose its speed.

"Stop that!" Toffee's voice said with unnatural faintness. "You're making me fade!"

"Huh?" Marc turned toward her, and his eyes widened with alarm. Toffee was almost transparent.

"You were day dreaming again, weren't you?" she accused, becoming more visible. "I've warned you about that before. I can't exist unless I'm projected through your full consciousness. Now stay awake unless you want to be wrecked."

"I'm sorry," Marc said, relieved that she had already become almost completely materialized once more. But Toffee, obviously concerned with other matters, seemed to forget the incident instantly.

"I think we're being followed," she said gravely.

"What!"

"A car turned off the highway just after we did, and has been gaining on us ever since. I've been watching it in the mirror."

Marc shifted quickly in the seat, and thrusting his head out the window, peered into the darkness, behind. Two headlights, like the eyes of a nightmare demon, stared malevolently back at him, and crept closer.

"Step on it!" he yelled. "It's probably the sheriff!" Then, suddenly, like a turtle retreating into the safety of its shell, he jerked his head back inside as a shot rang out through the still night.

"He's shooting at us!" he cried.

"Don't you think I know it?" Toffee moaned, bending low over the wheel. Then she screamed as another barking sound announced a second shot. The car began to skid drunkenly sideways.

"They've hit a tire!" she screamed. "We're out of control!"

Instantly the darkness was filled with scraping, rending sounds as the car swung crazily across the road, fell into a shallow ravine, and imbedded itself, nose-first, in the opposite embankment.

Following the musical aftermath of glass and metal showered on pavement, the ensuing stillness inside the car was almost deafening. Then, Toffee, dropping a broken steering gear daintily out of the window, turned to Marc.

"Are you all right?"

"I think so," Marc replied, without a trace of conviction.

"I don't think your car will go any more," Toffee said regretfully. "We'd better make a run for it. You'll have to get out first. My door is jammed."

Simultaneously, as though repeating a well rehearsed routine, they turned toward the door at Marc's side, then froze. Framed in the window, neither the gun nor the hand that held it looked in the least way friendly.

"I ... I can explain everything, Sheriff," Marc stammered.

"You won't have to explain a thing," a strange voice said softly, and the hand and gun were disconcertingly joined by the pointed, sharp-featured face that Marc had seen on the beach. "All you have to do is get out and follow my instructions as I give them. It's very simple."

The face disappeared and the gun waved them out of the car.

"What...?" Marc began.

"We'll talk later," the man broke in. "Right now, I'll have to ask you to blindfold each other."

His hand held out two crude, white bandages.

"Gee," Toffee giggled delightedly, accepting one of the strips. "It's just like a game isn't it?"

Marc's answering glance effortlessly hurdled years of scientific research and rendered the death ray hopelessly obsolete. His emotions, translated into words, would have required a brief but highly specialized vocabulary which he did not possess.

"You may remove your blindfolds now," the man said, and Marc and Toffee lost no time in doing so. For a moment both of them stood gaping incredulously at their new surroundings. They were standing in the center of an enormous dome-shaped room that seemed to be walled entirely with highly polished, unbroken rock; as though a small mountain had somehow been hollowed out. Except for two curved, slit-like doorways, the monotonous smoothness went endlessly on like perpetual motion. One door was directly before them; the other, through which they had obviously come, directly behind. Both were closed with a knobless, metallic panel. A few bits of austere, metal furniture stood here and there, looking lost in the vastness of the place. But the most unusual particular of the room was the way in which it was lighted. High in its ceiling, a fiery, sun-like ball revolved lazily, impossibly held aloft by what appeared to be two rays of strong, white light. The resulting brightness was like that one might expect to find in an unshaded meadow at high noon. Marc glanced at the contrivance and turned away blinking. It was too bright for steady scrutiny.

"You like my place?" the man asked, and his voice was the kind that crept up from behind and tapped you quietly on the shoulder. Listening to him, Marc wondered absently why Hollywood should bother with men like Peter Lorre when there were others, like the grey-haired little man, around.

Toffee, however, not so much interested in voices as what they were saying, gave the room a second appraising glance. "I don't think it's so screaming wonderful," she said with sledge hammer bluntness. "It might make a pretty fair dance hall, though, if you'd just tone down that silly light fixture up there."

The prideful glint in the little man's eyes went cold to be surplanted by the colorless ash of disappointment. Obviously, he had expected this to be an impressive moment.

"This," he said with battered dignity, "is a citadel of science."

"This," Toffee corrected ruthlessly, "is as nutty as a peanut stand at a county fair."

"And yet, there may be things here that will interest you intensely."

Toffee turned briefly to Marc. "I don't like the way he said that."

Apparently, the statement hadn't struck just the right note with Marc, either. He'd already turned to the little man. "Now, look here Dr. Herrigg...."

"Miss Logan told you my name?"

"Miss Logan?"

"The deceased Miss Logan," the doctor elaborated.

"... Whose body was planted in my closet," Marc completed angrily.

"That was a shame," the doctor sighed. "I'm truly sorry about all that, but it did seem the only thing to do at the time. I couldn't find you on the beach, so I had to make some hasty readjustments. You had to be gotten out of the way, and the woman's body had to be disposed of. What could be better than turning the whole problem over to the police? It all dove-tailed beautifully. After all, I have a very good reason for not wanting the police curious about my whereabouts."

"Just off hand," Marc said sourly, "I can't think of a better reason than murder. They're so apt to be high-handed about the thing."

"Exactly," the doctor agreed.

Toffee gazed disappointedly at the doctor's slight figure.

"Killers, nowadays," she murmured unhappily, "just aren't what they used to be. Maybe it's the shortages."

The doctor's eyes were heavy with exasperation as they turned toward her. "I do wish you weren't so preoccupied with murder," he said tiredly.

"You mean you're not?" Toffee returned quickly.

"Certainly not. I wouldn't have killed Mr. Epperson and Miss Logan if they hadn't forced me to. They got to prying into my private affairs, and I had to put an end to it somehow."

"The method seems a little extreme," Toffee pointed out. "A good, old-fashioned talking-to might have been simpler ... or were you afraid of hurting their feelings?"

The doctor waved an impatient hand through the air.

"They were only laboratory assistants and they insisted on knowing what I was working on. So I simply obliged them. I contrived to leave a couple of capsules where they would be sure to find them. I was certain they'd both be destroyed by the blast, but that fool woman ... she never did do anything right ... got outside the radius of vaporization. Naturally, I had to shoot her."

"Oh, naturally," Toffee broke in. "Anyone silly enough to get outside a perfectly good radius of vaporization deserves to be shot. I see what you mean."

"If you must speak," the doctor said scornfully, "try to say something intelligent."

"Give me time," was Toffee's bland reply, "and I'll build up a really good insult for you."

"But we were talking of other things," the doctor said loftily, wagging a finger toward a group of chairs before his desk. "You'd better sit down."

Hesitantly, Marc and Toffee accepted the invitation. Toffee crossed one lovely leg over the other and regarded it bleakly. Obviously, she thought it a waste in such scientific surroundings. Her determined belief in the idea that sex, if just given half the chance, could surmount any obstacle, seemed in grave peril of disproof. It was the first time that her faith in herself had ever been shaken, and it was not a nice feeling. She scowled at the doctor, who quickly averted his eyes. He sat down at the desk, dropped the gun on its glistening surface.

"And now," he said, shifting his attention to Marc, "I think we'd better get to the point of your visit. And just to relieve your minds, I'll tell you that you are not to be killed."

Toffee brightened.

"No," the doctor continued, "You were brought here, Mr. Pillsworth, because you are one of America's most influential advertising men. As such, you can be of use to me." He smiled wryly. "I didn't know of your profession when I placed Miss Logan in your home and knocked you out."

"You have something to advertise?" Marc asked evenly. "Don't tell me you're reopening Murder Incorporated under new management."

"No," the doctor smiled. "But I've something to advertise just the same ... a button."

"A button?" Marc and Toffee chorused unmusically.

The doctor smiled at their surprise. "This button," he said, and he pointed to a smooth white disc set into the corner of his desk ... an ordinary push button.

Toffee and Marc exchanged glances. Both asked questions. Neither received answers.

"I once had a plan," the doctor continued dreamily, "and I worked for years to perfect a bomb ... a curious sort of bomb. It was to be charged with infectious bacteria, and it could be hurled into the regions high above the earth by catapult. The result would have polluted the very heavens. All the rainfall thereafter, and eventually all the water supplies of the world would have become deadly to human life. Everyone would have died. It would have been ghastly ... a magnificent triumph of science." He shrugged philosophically. "I never did get it perfected."

"Thank heaven!" Marc murmured.

The doctor smiled again, more broadly. "So I worked out something else."

"Eh?"

"Oh my, yes. Only this time I haven't failed. You remember what happened to the rock and Mr. Epperson down on the beach, Mr. Pillsworth?"

Marc nodded dumbly.

"Wouldn't it be dreadful if such a thing happened to the world? Wouldn't it be terrible if the whole world suddenly burst apart and became nothing more than a fleeting vaporous body in the universe?"

"What's he talking about?" Toffee asked frightenedly.

"I'm talking about the button," the doctor said. "Would you believe it, if I told you that I could achieve such a disaster simply by pressing that button? It would all be over in less than a second."

A heavy silence crashed into the room and throbbed as quietly as a battery of kettle drums in full cry, pounding on the nerves like a trip hammer. Finally, when Marc spoke, it was only to force it back by the sheer force of his voice.

"I ... I don't believe it," he faltered.

"Are you forgetting what happened on the beach?" the doctor asked. "And besides, it doesn't matter whether you believe or disbelieve it. The point is that you are going to tell the world about it. You're going to sell the world that button for a very nice price ... it's freedom. Either things will be done my way in this world from now on, or there'll be no world. I'm simply giving you the biggest advertising assignment of all time. You're a lucky man, Mr. Pillsworth. I shall rule the world and you shall be my spokesman."

"I ... I don't believe it," Marc repeated doggedly. "You're lying."

"I've told you that you don't have to believe it," the doctor went on triumphantly. "However, one fact remains; if I do not receive, by radio, assurances from the governments of the world, beginning within the next twenty-four hours, that they will hold all resources and manpower at my disposal, pending my wishes, I shall not hesitate to press the button. And please believe me, I have enough charged material ready that it won't leave even so much as a memory."

"Twenty-four hours!" Marc gasped.

"Mr. Pillsworth!" the doctor exclaimed. "I know your resources! And I've waited a long time for this! The fate of the world rests in your hands!"

"Yes," Toffee put in derisively. "The doctor has a right to a little fun after working so hard for so long. Don't be a kill-joy, Marc."

"But I'll be arrested for murder, the minute I show myself," Marc protested. "And who'd believe any of this, anyway? What about that?"

"Those," the doctor said wearily, spreading his long hands before him, "are your problems. I'm sure you'll find a solution to them."

Toffee rose gracefully from her chair and swung easily toward the desk. "You make it all sound so easy, doctor," she said acidly. And so startling was her movement, so distracting her lovely body in motion, that neither Marc nor the doctor noticed that, in turning, she had scooped the gun from the corner of the desk, where the doctor had dropped it. But now that they did notice, another fact was also blaringly apparent. She was pointing the gun in the wrong direction. Grasped by the muzzle, it was aimed directly at her own smooth midriff.

"Hands up!" she announced dramatically.

"Turn it around!" Marc yelled. "You're sticking yourself up!"

"If you press that trigger," the doctor said calmly, "I'll press this button." His hand was already moving across the desk.

Marc swung quickly out of his chair, but overlooked the fact that one foot was still twisted nervously around a metallic leg. It was a disastrous oversight. The tardy foot, working in stiff opposition to his urgent forward movement, he sprawled awkwardly in mid-air, then came down, head-first, on the gleaming floor. Coming to haphazard rest, he rolled over, grinned foolishly, and closed his eyes in involuntary slumber. He was out like a cat at night.

The minute Marc's eyes closed, the gun skittered chatteringly across the floor. Toffee couldn't have held it any longer, if she'd wanted to. She'd vanished into thin air.

Dr. Herrigg stared bewilderedly at an area which, to his scientific mind, had no right to be vacant. A moment ago it had been occupied by a highly disconcerting young lady with red hair. Now, it was as empty as a rejected lover's heart. He passed a hand over his eyes, then looked again. It was still empty.

Something cool and damp struck Marc across the face, and he opened his eyes to find the doctor peering anxiously down at him, a cloth in his hand.

"Where is the girl?" he demanded.

Marc sat up and stared at him blankly, wondering the same thing. Toffee should be materialized, now that he was conscious again.

"I don't know. You haven't done anything to her?"

"Of course not. She was right here when you fell. She simply vanished."

"She must have sneaked out during the confusion," Marc said, thinking that what the doctor didn't know wouldn't hurt either of them. It was his own opinion that Toffee had materialized elsewhere and gone for help.

"But that's impossible! This place is locked electrically."

"In her way," Marc replied smilingly, "Toffee is rather scientific herself."

"Well, my men will catch her before she goes very far," the doctor said a bit more calmly. "She won't be able to get away."

"Your men?"

"Oh, I have quite a staff here."

"How do you keep them? Surely they don't approve of what you're doing?"

"They were brought here just as you were. They think they're on a very secret mission for the government, and remain as voluntary prisoners."

There was a soft, whirring sound and they both turned toward the slit-like door opposite the one through which they had come earlier. Swiftly, the metal panel shot upward to reveal a disheveled Toffee, squirming in the tremendous clutches of a large, muscular young man, whose face bore the bloody handiwork of her long, sharp fingernails. Toffee's face bore only the marks of outrage.

"Get those clammy hands off me!" she shrieked, "or I'll scratch that nasty face of yours right out of existence!"

"You already have, lady," the young man returned peevishly. "You've probably ruined it forever."

"I've done you a service then!" Toffee barked. "You should be glad to be rid of the ugly thing."

"Aw, lady," the fellow protested. "Is that any way to talk?"

"It's one way," Toffee retorted, and apparently anxious to have an end to the matter, she silently delivered a jabbing blow to the young man's stomach.

"Oof!" was her victim's singular comment, and he immediately released her to clutch at the damaged section.

Toffee pivoted and strode into the room with queenly elegance.

"That," she announced with emphasis, "is no gentleman."

The doctor looked at her and smiled.

"Apparently you got the wrong door," he said. "Do you like my laboratory?"

"It looked like a bathroom to me," Toffee snapped. "And don't rub it in, atom brain. If I'd got out the other way, you'd be plenty washed up by the time I got through with you. Make no mistake about that!"

"But you didn't," the doctor grinned, then turned to Marc. "Now that the young lady has been recovered, and no harm done, I imagine you're anxious to get to your work? We've already wasted nearly an hour."

Marc nodded, anxious to be away from the place at any cost.

"I'll have to ask you to replace your blindfolds," the doctor said smoothly. "It's of prime importance that you do not know where this place is located. I wouldn't like to see you leading the police back here."

While the business with the blindfolds was being transacted, the forgotten young man at the door seemed to recover his vagrant breath. He straightened up and glared at Toffee.

"And you ain't no lady, either!" he proclaimed spitefully.

Toffee clawed the air blindly.

"Lead me to him!" she wailed. "Just lead me to him!"

Sheriff Miller looked grieved. His expression was the one of a man who had been tried beyond endurance. His eyes, as though seeking escape, darted to the darkened window, then back to the disordered couple standing before him. He tried vainly to resist a feeling that the atmosphere in the little office had gotten too heavy for the structure's thin walls. Somewhere, somehow, something would have to give way soon. And it seemed, to him, that his sanity stood a good chance of being the first to go ... if it hadn't already.

"Now, let's have that again," he drawled, dragging his reluctant eyes back to Marc and Toffee.

"We were kidnapped," Marc began.

"... by the man who's ..." Toffee continued impatiently.

The sheriff's hand moved for silence more swiftly than either of them had supposed it could. His eyes moved beseechingly toward the ceiling. His lips murmured a silent prayer ... or curse.

"I know! I know!" he groaned. "By the man who's goin' to blow up the whole ding blasted world! You ain't said a word about nothin' else since my deputies come draggin' you in here. And if I have to listen to any more about it, I'm going to throw you two in jail and have the key melted down for a watch fob! It is the craziest thing I ever heard of in all my whole natural life."

"Natural life?" Toffee exclaimed acidly. "He calls life with a face like that natural! If that's nature, I'll take tabasco!"

"What's the matter with my face?" the sheriff asked belligerently.

"What isn't! Just look at that moth-eaten mustache!"

"Stop that!" Marc put in crisply. "We haven't time to haggle over the sheriff's mustache! We've only got twenty-two hours left!"

Injured at having been brought to account by his own prisoner, the sheriff turned vengeful eyes on Marc.

"You're in here fer murder!" he snapped.

"I've got to get to a telephone!" Marc pleaded desperately.

"If you think you're goin' to make me think you're crazy so's you can plead insanity," the sheriff snorted, "you're ... you're ... crazy!"

"Make up your mind, Sheriff," Toffee said demurely.

"Why did you kill 'er?" the sheriff thundered suddenly, leering at Marc.

"I didn't."

"Her body was in your closet!"

"So was yours," Toffee giggled.

The sheriff shuddered and passed a moist hand over an equally moist face, leaving both face and mustache matchingly droopy. He gazed smoldering at Toffee for a moment, then turned his attention resolutely to Marc.

"If you didn't kill 'er, who did?"

"Dr. Herrigg."

"... the man who's going to blow up the world," Toffee elaborated innocently.

The sheriff's huge hand came down thunderingly on the desk.

"That rips 'er!" he screamed. "That cops the cast iron feather duster!" He turned excitedly to one side. "George! George!"

A small, musty rustic emerged from the shadows and shuffled to the sheriff's side. "Yep, Mort?" he queried sadly. "What's up?"

"They are!" the sheriff thundered, pointing a long, gnarled finger dramatically at the captives. "Up fer life, I hope! Lock 'em up. Get 'em out of my sight afore I throttle the both of 'em with my own bare hands!"

George cast baleful, faded eyes at his two charges and nodded toward a door at the rear of the room. "Come along peaceable," he quavered. "The man'll have to bunk in with the drunk in number one." He looked at Toffee with a smile that was only a ghost of itself. "You can have a cell all to yourself, miss. We've got two."

Toffee cast a hopeful glance toward the street door, but instead of finding a possible path to freedom, it encountered only what appeared to be a solid wall of gaping mouths and goggling eyes. The villagers, currently looking like an assortment of strangling guppies in an over-crowded aquarium, had turned out to see the murderers; rare things in their quiet town. A low whistle issued from the staring group as Toffee moved into full view.

"Sure hot out tonight, ain't it?" a rural humorist commented sweetly, turning away.

Marc watched dolefully as the drunk, a dapper little man, bearing the mark of elegance in distress ... and alcoholism in over-abundance ... tottered uncertainly across the cell and clung eagerly to the bars. Blinking, he peered at Toffee in the opposite cell. "My wife would kill me," he murmured thickly. "Now I'm seein' redheaded dames!"

Across the aisle, Toffee looked up quickly, the overhead light falling sharply across her vivid face. "Look out who you're calling a dame!" she snapped. "You sodden little alcoholic. Why don't you become anonymous?"

"Geez!" the fellow breathed wonderingly. "She talks! I could hear her just as plain! She talks kinda mean, but she's got a real nice voice."

"Don't let it go to your head," Marc warned sourly. "She'll talk to anyone. She'd even pass the time of day with Jack the Ripper if she had the chance."

"Better than drunks," Toffee commented dryly.

"Don't you like liquor?" the little man asked worriedly.

"Not from a distance. Please breathe out the window."

Obediently, the fellow lurched toward the tiny cell window and perched his chin on its sill. "Like this?" he asked, anxious to please.

"Much obliged," Toffee rewarded him. "That helps a little." She turned anxiously to Marc. "How are we going to get out of here?" she asked.

"We wouldn't be in here in the first place," Marc lamented bitterly, "if that half-witted Herrigg hadn't dropped us right into their laps."

"I guess he thought you wanted to be near the telegraph office. It's just our luck that the jail turned up right next door." Her expression became deeply thoughtful. "Do you think he can really do what he says?"

"How should I know? But I do think we're likely to find out. Even if I manage to get out of here in time, no one will ever believe me. I wouldn't believe it myself. What was down in the laboratory?"

"Oh, nothing much. The usual collection of miscellaneous wires and wheels and tubes. There was just one thing, though. You remember that lighting gadget in the upper room?"

Marc nodded that he remembered.

"Well, there was another of those downstairs, only larger and nearer the floor. I walked right into one of those white beams that hold it up."

"What happened?"

"Nothing really," Toffee went on. "The ball stopped turning. I guess it would have fallen if I'd broken the beam entirely. When I stepped out, it started revolving again, just as before, only in the opposite direction. That's when that pie-faced gorilla grabbed me."

It wasn't much of a revelation; it didn't leave much room for discussion, and at its conclusion the little cell block became very quiet. The heavy, dewy breathing of the little drunk gave the atmosphere a sort of sad, sighing quality. It was Toffee who finally put an end to it.

"Oh," she said. "I forgot something."

"Huh?" Marc grunted.

"I forgot something," Toffee repeated, and immodestly she thrust a searching finger into the upper portion of her brief costume. She looked like a distressed woman who had falsified her figure only to discover that certain attachments, in spite of their manufacturer's claims, are not always trustworthy. It was a moment of breathless suspense.

"Stop that!" Marc yelled. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I found something in the laboratory," Toffee said, her curious search leading her into a series of writhing motions of a very suggestive nature. "I put it away for safe keeping."

"In ... in your...?"

"Yes," Toffee answered quickly. "After all, I don't have any pockets, you know."

"What was it?"

"Something small and white ... and cold, at first," Toffee panted, snappily shifting hips.

"A capsule?" Marc yelled.

"What's a capsule?" Toffee gasped impatiently. "Don't bother me with silly questions at a time like this. I know the thing is here somewhere."

The drunk turned eagerly away from the window. His eyes became brilliantly alight, and a grin of sheerest delight spread over his face.

"Turn on the blue lights!" he chortled, then followed the exclamation with an offensively shrill whistle.

"Keep your low notions to yourself," Toffee snapped, pushing back a mop of red hair that had fallen rakishly over one eye. "Things are bad enough without you getting smutty about it all. I'm only looking for something."

"Ain't nothing missing that I can see," the drunk giggled.

"Hit him Marc!" Toffee yelled. "Smack that evil-minded little ogre!"

"Can't you get along without all that squirming?" Marc pleaded. "Where's your sense of modesty?"

"I don't know," Toffee returned. "But wherever it is, I'll bet it's getting a darned good jolting around."

Then suddenly the performance stopped.

"It's no use," Toffee said. "I've got this thing on too tight, and the thing's hiding where I can't get at it. I'll have to loosen things up a bit."

"Lord love me!" gasped the evil-minded little ogre. "If she loosens up much more, she'll be spread out like a picnic lunch."

"Slug him, Marc!"

"We'll close our eyes," Marc compromised. "I'll keep my hand over his."

"All right," Toffee agreed, "but if the dirty little devil tries to peek, hammer him down to the floor! Cut him off at the ankles!"

With Marc's promise that the evil-minded little ogre, more recently a nasty little devil, should be served in his prime in case of peeking, the loosening up proceeded in good order. Turning her back, and bending over, Toffee began to shake her shapely torso in a manner that vividly recalled the palmier days of Gilda Grey. It was in this provocative moment that George, the ancient keeper of the keys, stirred by the sound of loud voices, hove onto the scene. Stopping short at the first glimpse of the quaking Toffee, he flushed a deep crimson and turned his faded eyes modestly away.

"You gotta stop that, lady," he whimpered. "It ain't decent, and this is a respectable jail. The sheriff don't like that sort of thing goin' on here."

"Go away!" Toffee yelled distractedly, clutching wildly at her dress. "Get out of here!"

"I ain't gonna leave 'til you promise not to do that any more. It ain't nice." He pointed to Marc and the drunk, still standing starkly still, their eyes clamped determinedly shut. "Just look what you're doin' to them poor boys over there, lady. You ain't gettin' nowhere with them. Their eyes is shut. And look at the big one helpin' the little one to keep from lookin' out."

"Yes!" Toffee exclaimed hotly. "I had to practically threaten those 'poor boys' with disfigurement to get them to do it! Now, you get out of here before I start whooping it up all over the lot. I'll tell people you made improper advances."

Instantly, George's face exchanged its embarrassed redness for a terrified pallor. He knew when he was licked. He turned and fled from the room.

"I'm goin' to call the sheriff," he threatened distantly. "He's goin' to be awful mad when he learns what's goin' on."

Unconcernedly, Toffee continued her startling operations just where she'd left off. Almost immediately a small, white pellet appeared at her feet. Hastily, she readjusted her appropriated draperies and picked it up.

"I've got it!" she called, and the distraught statues in the opposite cell immediately came to life.

"Let's see it!" Marc yelled excitedly.

"Just a minute," Toffee replied. "Wait 'til I get it open. I want to see what's inside."

"Don't!" Marc screamed. "It'll blow up! Throw it over here, to me."

"Oh, all right," Toffee agreed reluctantly. "Here it comes."

Like a bullet dispelled from a gun that was anxious to be rid of its burden, the capsule shot across the aisle, and in spite of Marc's frantic clutching gestures, cracked sharply against an unrelenting iron bar. Then, it dropped back, into the center of the passage.

Marc turned dazedly to Toffee, opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. The tiny jail was suddenly all smoke, flame and blackness, more or less in that order, and its surprised inmates were suffering the eerie sensation of having the floor treacherously snatched from beneath their very feet.

Elevating his nose from its uncomfortable position astride a cold, iron bar, Marc glanced unbelieving at the devastation about him. The jail was a shattered shambles, and well ventilated in the extreme. Here and there, ghostly pockets of smoke were arising slowly through beams of moonlight. Somewhere behind him, there was the sound of an iron door being flung aside, and sitting up, he looked around.

"Damn!" Toffee said with elegant profanity. "My dress is a mess."

"The jail hasn't been improved much, either," Marc observed. "You hurt?"

"Of course not!" Toffee said, obviously surprised that anyone should ever think of her as anything but indestructible. "I'm still intact."

A dreadful moaning sounded from deep under a pile of debris, and Toffee turned, stepped over the door that was hanging undecidedly by a single bent hinge, and leaned forward in a listening attitude.

"What is it?" Marc asked. "It sounds like a lost soul."

"It is," Toffee said. "It's your drunken cell mate. He's giving voice."

"I wish he wouldn't be so damned generous with it. He's fairly lavishing voice."

"Must be down pretty deep," Toffee mused. "We can't leave him there."

"Why not?"

"I don't know for sure," Toffee replied uncertainly. "But I'm pretty certain it isn't just the thing to do." She started in the general direction of the noise. "Take heart!" she called. "We're coming!"

"Don't bother!" the voice called back weakly. "It's not very nice down here. You wouldn't like it at all. Just pass down a bottle and go away."

When the last armful of bars had finally been cast melodiously aside, and the little man freed, he regarded Marc levelly, without thanks.

"You didn't have to hit me," he said reproachfully. "I didn't peek much."

"We blew up!" Toffee explained proudly. She waved an arm significantly at a sizable hole in the wall. The fact that the ceiling was almost entirely gone seemed to escape her notice. "Let's go!"

The drunk, an amiable soul, even if a lost one, accepted the explanation without question and smiled agreeably.

"Okay," he said. "Let's take my car and go somewhere. There's some liquor left in it I think." He turned to Marc apologetically. "No offense, old man?"

"None at all," Marc replied absently.

The fellow extended his hand formally and said, "I'm Harold Jenks. Harold J. Jenks, the plumber."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Jenks," Marc said impatiently, anxious to be going. "My name is Dracula. This is my girl friend, Mad Agnes."

"Please to meet you, Mr. Dracula," Harold said with careful politeness.

"Heaven help me!" Marc exclaimed desperately. "Let's get out of here!"

And like three specters, freshly risen from the grave, they filed silently out into the cool quietness of the night. Toffee looked back sadly.

"It wasn't such a bad little jail," she said with becoming sentiment.

"No, it wasn't," Harold agreed thickly. "I've been in a lot worse."

Marc at the wheel, the delivery truck sped down the silvery, moonlit highway, heralding to a slumbering countryside that the services of Harold J. Jenks could be obtained by the very simple operation of calling 23-J. This lie was blatantly blazoned on the side of the vehicle in impressive gilt letters. As for Harold J. Jenks, himself, far from standing ready to rush to the aid of housewives in moist distress, he was, at the moment, behind those very letters in the company of Toffee and an assortment of suspicious looking bottles, and caroling at the top of his lungs. The two of them, joined together in absolute discord, were engaged in a frightful recital of bawdy ballads, each new selection seeming to rival its forerunner for sheer obscenity. Marc, long since giving up any hope of restraining this wild party, tried merely not to listen to it. And things might have gone on in this disquieting fashion all night if the truck hadn't unexpectedly coughed, sputtered, then lavished its last gasp on an asthmatic halt.

"What's the matter?" Toffee asked, dropping out of the current vocal massacre long enough to peer owlishly over the back of the seat. "Why stop?"

"We're out of gas," Marc replied. And it was a curse.

"Where are we?" Harold muttered weakly from the darker reaches of the merchandise compartment. "Is there any liquor nearby?"

Marc thrust his head out of the window, then drew it slowly back. "We're opposite the beach house," he replied disgustedly, "right where we started."

"Is there any liquor there?" Harold asked. "We're running low."

"Don't I know it!" Marc growled peevishly. "They don't run any lower than you two. At least you could have told me we needed gas. The sheriff will be catching up with us any minute now, and he'll probably string us up this time. He might forgive a little murder, but blowing up his jail is a serious matter."

Harold lapsed unconcernedly into discordant melody once more, but this time he was not joined by Toffee.

"We'd better get out of here," she said. "Let's hide in the house."

"We can't go there. It's full of cops."

"Well, at least we can hide in the woods."

"We'll have to," Marc nodded. "Drag that answer to a distiller's prayer out of there and let's go. I think those lights back there on the bend belong to the sheriff's car."

When they were safely in the woods, and Harold had been persuaded that his future would be more secure without melodic profanity ... even a rendition of "The Old Pine Tree," especially suited to the occasion ... Marc turned his attention to the road. The sheriff's car was already beside the delivery truck.

"What are they doing?" Toffee hissed.

"Searching the truck."

"Won't do 'em any good," Harold chuckled softly. "There isn't any more liquor in it."

"They're leaving now," Marc called back. "They're headed for the house. I guess they think we're up there."

"Good," said Toffee. "That gives us more time, anyway."

"More time for what?" Marc asked, turning toward her and slumping dejectedly against a tree. "What can we do out here in these woods?"

"I don't know," Toffee said reflectively. "But I feel something in the back of your subconscious that's trying to break through. If I just concentrate a minute, I may get it. It has something to do with these woods, I think. Try to make your mind a blank. That'll help a lot in establishing a contact. I could knock you out," she suggested, "and return there."

"I'll just make my mind a blank," Marc answered hastily.

And for a time a heavy silence fell over the trio.

"Are these pine trees?" Toffee asked finally, breaking the quiet.

"Good grief!" Marc groaned. "I concentrate myself almost into a coma to make my mind a blank for you, and all you do is wonder about the scenery."

"No, no," Toffee said, fluttering a hand delicately. "That's what I got from your subconscious; a memory of the scent of pines ... if that's what they are. You smelled them when you were blindfolded ... the first time."

"I don't remember it."

"Of course you don't. You were too busy thinking about other things with your conscious mind. But your subconscious recorded it, and it's still there. It was after Dr. Herrigg stopped the car and we all got out."

"But we walked for half an hour after that."

"I know. But at least we know where we started from. The memory was very strong when we came into these woods. We must have been just about here. The atmosphere is identical. There was also the sound of the sea. We walked away from it. Where would you be if you walked half an hour straight into these woods?"

"At a swamp clearing. But there isn't anything there."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. It's part of my property."

"There's something else," Toffee said slowly. "We heard the ocean again, just before we arrived at Herrigg's laboratory. So we couldn't have walked back into the woods. We must have gone somewhere else."

"But we traveled straight ahead," Marc objected. "We didn't turn."

"Are you sure this isn't a peninsula? We might have walked across it."

"No," Marc said firmly. "We couldn't have done that. The cliff juts out into the ocean, but it wouldn't take more than a few minutes to cross it."

"I know what happened!" Toffee cried. "We did turn! We never stopped turning. We walked in a circle through these very woods. Even people who aren't blindfolded often walk in circles when they think they're going straight. At least they do in forests. Herrigg was purposely throwing us off the track!"

"I think you are right!" Marc exclaimed enthusiastically. "Maybe we'll stop Herrigg yet!" Then the excitement suddenly died from his voice. "But if we traveled in a circle," he said, "we should be at Herrigg's place now. There's nothing near here but the beach house."

"But we were closer to the ocean than this," Toffee argued. "We were right next to it."

"The beach?"

"I don't think so," Toffee reflected. "We went downward, but not on a wooden stairway. It must have been on the other side of the cliff."

"But we couldn't have gone down there. It's a sheer drop."

"But we did," Toffee insisted. "We were inside or under that cliff. I'm dead sure of it. At least we can't lose anything by looking."

"Nothing but our lives," Marc commented dryly. "And as things stand, that's next to nothing." He crossed to Harold, who was currently drowsing, and grasped him by the shoulder. "Come on," he said. "Let's go."

Harold opened one doggy eye and gazed up hopefully. "We going to get some grog?" he asked foggily.

Marc stopped and looked back over his shoulder. From where the three of them were standing in the sloping tunnel, he could not see the entrance, but the faint, luminous glow of reflected moonlight marked its probable location. Also, it gave the passage an eerie, under-water appearance.

"We've come quite a distance," he whispered. "We must be almost level with the ocean by now. I wondered how Herrigg ever found this place. It looked like an ordinary wash-out from the highway."

Toffee tugged at his sleeve. "He probably built it that way himself," she hissed. "Let's keep going."

"Reminds me of a downstairs saloon in Omaha," Harold put in with a misguided attempt at sociability. "You go down this little passage, and...."

There was a sudden, soft slapping sound, and Harold became strangely mute.

"We'll hear about your disreputable meanderings some other time," Toffee said menacingly.

And, for a time, they traveled on in silence.

Then, as they rounded a bend in the tunnel, Toffee, who had self-appointedly taken the lead, suddenly darted back, and forced Marc and Harold back against the rough, rocky wall.

"Take it easy," Harold complained. "You trying to split my head open?"

"I couldn't stand the fumes," Toffee retorted. "I think he saw me."

"Who?" hissed Marc. "Who saw you?"

"There's an open space down there," Toffee whispered. "And there's a guard standing in it. I saw him silhouetted against the ocean. He may have been looking right at me."

Suddenly the little party froze as a voice echoed through the tunnel.

"Geez, Mac!" it said. "Did you see that, up in the passage, just now?"

"Nope," came the voice of Mac. "Didn't see a thing."

"I did," the voice went on wonderingly. "I could have sworn I saw a beautiful redheaded angel. She was walking straight for me, just as pretty as you please. She looked kinda half-naked."

"Oh, is that all it was?" Mac returned disappointedly. "I see things like that ever once in awhile. They come and go, those angels. You've just been down here too long. You'll get over it. They go away after a time."

"I don't want to get over it," the voice said positively. "Not when I'm seeing dames like that!"

"Dames!" Toffee breathed hotly. "I'll show that blockhead who's a dame!"

"Hold on!" Marc rasped, placing a restraining hand on her arm. "If they think you're an apparition, let's not disillusion them. Get out there in that patch of moonlight and try to look ethereal ... if it's possible ... while Harold and I sneak up on them from the shadows." He swung about and mistrustingly confronted the weaving Harold. "Grab a rock," he directed. "We're going to tuck them in for the night."

"Going to play a trick, eh?" Harold winked happily, grabbing an undersized boulder. "I'm just crazy about tricks." And staggering under his burden of liquor and rock, he started after Marc, who was already moving cautiously along the shadowed wall.

Slowly, rhythmically, Toffee moved into the moonlight, her arms swaying gracefully over her head. In the diffused, silver spotlight, she looked more like a lovely other-world figure than any hallucination would ever dare.

"Yipes!" a voice, Mac's, breathed worshipfully. "Look, Walt! Now I'm seeing it. This is the best one yet."

"Yeah," whispered Walt, apparently overcome. "She's too beautiful to be true. I wish she were real."

The angel was strangely responsive to flattery. It renewed its efforts.

"Wow!" Walt moaned happily. "It's the first time I ever had a vision that did a strip tease! This is better than a show!"

Instantly, as though to punctuate the remark, there were two almost simultaneous thuds, and Toffee's enthusiastic audience, looking like bobby soxers at a Frank Sinatra matinee, tumbled blissfully to the ground.

"Stop that!" Marc rasped, stepping over one of the slumbering guards, "Can't you do anything without taking off your clothes?"

"Yes," Toffee snickered wickedly. "But it isn't much fun. Did you have to knock them out so soon? I was only getting started."

"Never mind," Marc growled. "We've got to concentrate on getting to Herrigg. The entrance must be near here. Do you see a panel anywhere?"

"It's probably disguised," Toffee offered. "When that ape grabbed me, he just rubbed his hand over the wall to open the door. We might try rubbing this wall and see what happens. It may be an invisible beam that has to be broken at close range."

"Anything's worth a try," Marc answered, and accordingly, advanced to the wall and began running his hands swiftly in both directions.

For a time the little party clawed silently at the wall like a trio of demented sand crabs. It was doubtful that Harold really knew the purpose of this activity, but he joined in with great good will. Finally, their industry came to an end as Marc spoke:

"I think I've got it," he whispered. "There's a smooth spot over here."

Even as he spoke, a sudden flash of bright light fell over them as a slit appeared in the side of the cliff, to reveal the familiar dome-like room. Marc stole back for another look at the guards, and finding them still unconscious, returned swiftly to the door.

"Is Herrigg there?" he asked, approaching Toffee.

"I don't see him," Toffee answered. "I think the room's empty."

They crept forward. Toffee was right; the room was deserted. Removing his jacket, Marc moved into the passage again, and by hanging the garment on a jagged rock, managed to cover the smooth surface that opened the door.

"We don't want to be trapped in here," he explained, returning inside. Then he nodded to Toffee. "Keep an eye on the guards."

"Okay," she agreed. "What are you going to do?"

"Look for Herrigg," Marc replied, "and try to get the jump on him."

He didn't have to look far, for almost instantly there was a soft, whirring sound that announced the opening of the laboratory door. Marc dashed swiftly toward it and stood to one side. Toffee crossed to the open doorway and dissolved into its shadows. She motioned frantically to Harold, still in the center of the room, but in answer, he only blinked and swayed undecidedly from side to side, obviously blinded by the bright light.

The door slid open and Dr. Herrigg stepped into the room. Whatever he had expected to find, it is certain that an alcoholic plumber was not among those items, for instantly, at the sight of Harold, he stopped short, stunned. Indeed, so acute was his surprise that he didn't notice Marc, almost next to him. The gun seemed to appear magically in the doctor's hand as he advanced slowly toward the befogged Harold. Harold, for his part, gazed uncertainly at the shocked scientist and greeted him with mistaken enthusiasm.

"Got a shot, Doc?" he asked hopefully.

It was at this precise moment that Marc sprang after the doctor. Leaping lightly forward, he grasped Herrigg's upper arms firmly and pulled them sharply behind the startled man. There was a quick barking sound, and a bullet whined thinly over Harold's head, then ricocheted from the solid, circular wall. As the gun clattered to the floor, Harold followed its example, and dropped to his knees, looking much like a terrified, repentant sinner at a revival.

"Cripes, Doc!" he muttered feverishly. "You got it all wrong. All I want is a drink!"

"Grab that gun!" Marc panted, holding the furiously struggling doctor. "Cover him!"

Toffee, like an Olympic runner in the last stretch, darted swiftly from the shadows and scooped the weapon from the floor. This time she held it correctly.

"Stand back!" she yelled blood thirstily, slipping into what she believed to be the spirit of the occasion. "I'll blow his ugly head off!"

The doctor, unexpectedly confronted by this chilling display of feminine willingness to mayhem, became instantly docile. "Don't shoot!" he pleaded.

Marc released him and moved toward Toffee. He took the gun from her and held it levelly on Herrigg. "Let's go, Herrigg," he said. "Let's join the sheriff."

"You can't do this!" the doctor protested frantically. "You can't!"

"No?" Marc asked, nodding toward the door. "Just step right this way."

There was a general movement toward the outer passage, but it was suddenly arrested like an abrupt foot-fall in the dark that had reached for a stairway too soon. The party, quarry and hunters alike, suddenly froze, as a wild baying echoed weirdly through the outer tunnel.

"Monsters!" Toffee screamed with sincerest terror.

And in the next moment it seemed that she was right. Two sets of fiendish, glowing eyes appeared in the doorway, and below them, in appropriate places, were two wide, slavering mouths. This paralyzing spectacle was presently explained, though made no more lovely, as the eyes and mouths, advancing, proved to be the formidable property of two giant bloodhounds. They were straining against a couple of taut chain leashes at whose ends was a single, mammoth hand. It was the hand of Sheriff Miller. He surveyed the transfixed party with triumphant eyes.

"Here they are boys!" he called out loudly. "Come and get 'em!"

The call was greeted by the additional, and no more reassuring appearance of three deputies, all of uniform and unbelievable proportions. One of them carried a gun of distant, but nonetheless dangerous, vintage.

"Which one we after, Mort?" one of them asked in a voice that sounded as though it was being dragged through a gravel pit.

The sheriff pointed to Marc. "That tall, murderous buzzard," he drawled.

Dr. Herrigg, seeing his deliverance at hand, glanced eagerly toward the desk, the button on its corner. Marc, realizing that he had lost his advantage, started forward.

"There's your murderer!" he cried, pointing a trembling finger at the doctor, and praying that the sheriff would believe him. He still had his gun, and intended using it if Herrigg made a move. The doctor seemed to sense this and remained tentatively where he was.

"I don't know what he's talking about," he said suavely. "This man is obviously suffering from a mental disorder."

"Don't believe him!" Marc yelled. "Ask him about his laboratory."

The sheriff looked baffled. He rubbed his free hand slowly over the back of his neck. It seemed an hour before the act had been completed, and he said, "Grab 'em both boys. Hold 'em quiet 'til we find out what this is all about."

The "boys" did as they were told with a little more efficiency, it seemed, than was absolutely necessary.

"And now," the sheriff said unhurriedly, "I might's well tell you two, if either of you make a move, we'll just have to fix you for good."

In disagreement with these new developments, Toffee started determinedly forward, but suddenly stopped short as the bloodhounds turned toward her and snarled. She'd seen hungry glances directed at her legs before, but never any quite so terrifyingly hungry as these. The sheriff regarded her lazily.

"I'd sure hate to see a pretty girl like you get all chewed up and spit out," he said with genuine sadness. "But if you make another move, I'm afraid I just won't be able to hold the hounds no longer. They ain't had a lot to eat lately."

Toffee glanced nervously at the great, hulking beasts, and didn't make another move. The sheriff directed his attention to Marc's captor.

"Keep a sharp eye on that 'un, Fred," he said. "He's pretty desperate."

Meantime, Harold, forgotten and ignored in the background, was beginning to feel a bit left out of things. He started vaguely forward.

"I'm pretty desperate too," he said jarringly.

Surprised, everyone turned in unison to look at the woozy little fellow.

"I'm Hypo Hal," Harold went on theatrically, delighted by such unanimous attention and reluctant to lose it. "I think I'll make a confession or two."

He swaggered importantly across the room to the desk, and sitting on its edge, glanced back to check the setting. "What's this?" he asked absently, jabbing a finger toward the button on the corner.

"Don't!" screamed Marc. And with a sudden motion of his shoulders, he lurched free of the deputy's heavy grasp.

"Get 'im, Fred!" the sheriff bellowed.

In the furious moment that followed, Marc was briefly aware of just two things. The first was a Gargantuan fist, moving swiftly into his face; the second ... and most alarming ... was Harold's finger, pressing firmly down on the white button. Both made contact in the same dreadful instant.

There was a sudden, terrifying burst of white, white light, then complete, roaring darkness.

Marc felt the floor go fluid under his feet. Then the swirling tide caught him up, and he was spiraling downward, into the deep blackness of a gigantic whirlpool. Nearer and nearer the pointed, thrashing center he moved, but he did not struggle against it. Somehow, he was suddenly too weary to care. He relaxed and let himself be borne along in the racing, circling current.

The journey ended just as it reached its twisting, turning climax. Deposited lightly on a soft, velvety surface, Marc lay perfectly still for a moment, savoring a strange feeling of quiet contentment. Slowly, he opened his eyes and gazed out at the muted greenness of the quiet little valley. He ran an eager hand over the grass. It was as soft and fine as rabbit's fur. With a contented sigh, he rolled over. Then he sat up abruptly.

The pert, vivid face that was lowered to his, was familiar. Also, it was irritated in expression. Dangerously so.

"What's the big idea?" Toffee demanded hotly.

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean! Just listen to him! You know very well what I mean. Shoving me back into your subconscious just when things really get exciting!"

Marc glanced questioningly around.

"We're in the valley of your obnoxious mind," Toffee explained ungraciously. "Now I'll have to go back to work, putting away that stupid miscellaneous information. And what trash it is! It's what I get for taking the job in an inferior mind. I should have held out for a decent intellect."

"I'm sorry," Marc murmured, too cowed to argue.

The anger immediately faded from Toffee's puckish features. She fell to her knees beside him.

"I'm sorry I said that, Marc," she said with unaccustomed gentleness. "I didn't mean it. I wouldn't be anyone else's subconscious manifestation for anything in the world. I swear it!"

"World!" The word struck a responsive chord in Marc's memory. "I've got to get back!" he cried, jumping to his feet.

"Not until you kiss me goodbye," Toffee insisted, rising after him.

Cool lips and whirling dizziness often went hand in hand, but never as when the lips involved were Toffee's. Suddenly, the valley had begun to spin, and Marc felt himself being lifted upward. There was a dreadful rush of wind, and Toffee was torn from his embrace. A moment later, as through the roar of a tumultuous ocean, her voice reached him faintly.

"Don't forget!" she was calling. "Don't forget that I'm always waiting here, in the back of your mind. I'm always here, Marc!"

Marc attempted a reply, but the screaming wind forced the words back into his throat. He tried not to notice that the light was growing dim; that a heavy blackness was drawing close around him, everywhere.

Marc opened his eyes, and cautiously felt his jaw. It hurt. Taking this in stride, he directed his attention to his surroundings. He was propped up against the passage wall in a more-or-less, back-of-the-neck, sitting position. From the opening at the end, he could see that the half-light of early morning was reaching in to waste a delicate, silvery outline on an immense pile of rocky wreckage. There was a scraping sound behind him, and he turned.

"You finally wake up?" the sheriff drawled, moving toward him. "Might's well tell you right now, you ain't hurt none, so's you won't worry."

Marc started to his feet.

"You don't have to run from me no more," the sheriff said. "You're in the clear. Herrigg told us all about the murder; how he shot the woman and put 'er in your house. We ain't after you no more."

Marc relaxed.

"Where is everyone?" he asked. "What happened?"

"They've all went," the sheriff said uneasily. "Everyone 'cept you and me ... and one other."

"One other?"

"Yeah," the sheriff went on hesitantly. "The ... the girl. She didn't get out when the blast went off, I guess. We looked fer 'er, but didn't have no luck. I'm sorry to be the one to tell it to you. She was such a pretty little thing. But I guess she's happier where she is, if it comforts you to think so."

"Yes. I guess so," Marc replied, smiling wryly. His eyes became reflective. "What about the doctor?"

"Well, I ain't so sure about him. He acted all right while we was talkin' about the murder, but soon's we brought up about this place down here and the rig he had in 'er, it seems like he just went plumb outa his head. He kept mumblin' something about somebody breakin' some sort of beam and reversin' a mechanism. Kept yellin' that it caused the earth to get itself all uncharged, whatever that means. And he called that poor little girl names 'til you just wouldn't believe it." The sheriff paused and gazed intently at Marc. "You got any idea what he was goin' on about?"

Marc considered the question for a long moment. "No, I haven't," he said finally. "I haven't any idea at all."

"You was ravin' about him blowin' up the world, last night."

"I guess I was just excited," Marc replied evasively.

"That's what I thought at the time."

Marc got slowly to his feet, and tried his legs. They were a little stiff but still serving their purpose.

"What about the laboratory?" he asked.

"Blew to kingdom come," the sheriff replied. "Ain't nothin' left of 'er. Guess we'll never know what was goin' on in 'er. We got the men out of 'er all right, but they didn't know much about what they was here for."

Marc nodded and started slowly up the passage. He was anxious to be away from the place.

"I think I'd like to get back to the house," he said, "if you don't mind."

"Don't mind at all," the sheriff answered amiably, following after him. "As a matter of fact, I feel a little foolish about chasin' you around like I did. But after you locked me up and blasted my jail house, I guess it wasn't my fault I thought you was a desperado."

When they reached the top of the cliff and stepped out onto the highway, Marc had to close his eyes a moment against the bright morning sun. He shook his head. At first there was a sharp pain, but when it had passed he felt better. He opened his eyes again, started to turn to the sheriff, then did a quick double-take toward the beach house. His eyes grew wide with disbelief.

A blue convertible was standing pertly in the drive.

Without a word of explanation, Marc ran eagerly across the highway and toward the house, leaving the sheriff to his own reflections on the daftness of city folk.

"Julie! Julie!" he cried, reaching the path. And in the next instant he nearly stumbled as he saw his wife, cool, blonde and radiant as ever, move gracefully through the front door and smile down at him from the tiny terrace. Then, somehow, she was in his arms.

"When did you get here?" Marc asked when he could.

"Just fifteen minutes ago," Julie said cheerfully. "I drove all night to get here. I had no idea you'd be at the beach so early. I thought I'd have to drag you out of bed." She sighed contentedly. "I just couldn't stand another day without you. I just couldn't face it."

"What about the separate vacations?"

Julie's eyes became wide and innocent. "What are those?" she asked.

"All over it?"

She nodded, flushed just a little.

Through their conversation, Marc had been vaguely aware of a man's voice within the house. It seemed excited.

"Who's that?" he asked.

"Oh, that!" Julie laughed. "It's the radio!" She looked suddenly excited, as though having just remembered something important. "You should just hear what's going on! It's absolutely fantastic!"

"Going on?"

"Yes. It's the strangest thing. Early this morning there was some sort of disturbance all through the earth's surface. In some places, it was so severe, it knocked down whole buildings. I really don't understand it very well, but at first they thought it was just an earthquake, but scientists proved somehow that it couldn't have been. Now, they've decided that it must have been some sort of weird bombardment from another planet ... Mars or the moon, or one of those places. Russia even claims to be holding Orson Welles responsible.

"Anyway, the most amazing things have been happening ever since! Already, they've formed a World Army in case of further attacks. And everyone's talking about a United World. They're really sincere about it, too. The world has really become united in just the last few hours. It's odd how swiftly these things can be accomplished when they really get down to it. They've settled matters that no one ever thought they'd agree on. It's almost unbelievable. It seems we just had to have some sort of outside threat to pull us all together."

"Are you sure about all that?" Marc asked.

"Oh, yes!" Julie nodded positively. "Some places got a real jolting." She drew closer to him. "I'm so glad you weren't in any of them," she went on softly. "I'm so thankful you were safe here, where nothing ever happens ... where you could have a nice, quiet vacation."

Marc's mouth flew widely open, then snapped shut. Grinning, he slipped an arm about Julie's waist and pulled her gently toward the house.

"So am I," he said quietly.

THE END