"The expression," Marc said sedately, "is bottoms up."
"Up or down," Toffee said, "it doesn't matter. I was just tossing in bottoms at random. Assorted bottoms, so to speak. If you prefer them up, you'll get no argument out of me."
There was a smacking sound as Marc lowered the bottle from his lips. "Let's just skip the bottoms," he said, "and go on to something else."
"Sounds pretty giddy," Toffee mused, "all this leaping about over bottoms. However...."
"Look outside," Marc suggested wearily, "and see if they're still out there."
"Okay," Toffee said. A small shaft of light darted in and out of the closet as she opened the door and closed it again. "They're churning about like cattle in a loading chute," she reported. "Where are you?"
"Sitting on the floor," Marc said. "I'm beginning to find this place restful."
"You're beginning to stink of Irish whiskey," Toffee said. "Stop gulping at that bottle like a great fish and hand it back."
"I wonder if we should offer George a drink?" Marc said with growing amiability. "I definitely heard him breathing back there just now. Sounds a trifle wheezy, I'm afraid."
"I think we ought to banish George from our minds," Toffee said. "Besides, now that I've got the bottle back I don't intend to be free about handing it around for quite some time."
"All right," Marc said. "Have it your way. George is banished."
There was a prolonged period of contented silence, broken intermittently by faint gurgling sounds, first from one side of the closet then the other. It was Toffee who finally spoke.
"By the way," she said, "what was all that nonsense about your getting yourself shot?"
"Oh, that," Marc said negligently. "It's a bunch of subversives. They have a subtle plan to poison the minds of the public against the government—with the government's permission. I went on the air to expose them, but they had me shot to stop me. There was this dark fellow with a scar over his left eye in the control booth...." He paused. "Holy smoke! I forgot. This is serious business, isn't it?"
"It sounds like it," Toffee said. "How far did you get in your broadcast?"
"I didn't even get started. I suppose I ought to try to do it again."
"If they think you're dead or dying, they won't be watching for you any more."
"That's right," Marc said. "Let's get out of here."
"Okay," Toffee said. "Just take your arms away from my waist so I can get up."
"Huh?" Marc said. "I don't have my arms around your waist."
"You haven't!" Toffee said. "Didn't you take the gadget from under my arm either?"
"Of course not."
"It's that sneaky George," Toffee snorted. "And when I think of how I was enjoying it...!" She turned in the darkness. "Let go of me before I lose my temper, George. So help me, you spurious spectre, I'll twist your head off when I get ahold of you."
There was no answer but apparently the threat had taken hold; there were sounds of Toffee getting to her feet.
"That'll hold him," she said. "Look outside and see how things are. I want that gadget back."
Marc fumbled his way to the door, opened it a crack, then shoved it all the way open.
"All clear," he said and turned back to Toffee. "Can you see him back there? Is he visible?"
"I can just make him out," Toffee said, peering into the back of the closet. "He's sort of lurking."
"Okay, you rat," Marc said. "Come out of there and give it to us. Snap into it."
There were shuffling sounds from the shadows and slowly a figure emerged into the light. It was a dark, heavy figure. The face was swarthy and there was a scar over the left eye. The man leered at the two in the doorway.
"Okay," he said. "Keep your shirts on. I'm going to give it to you all right. I'm going to give it to you good."
He moved closer. In his left hand was Toffee's gadget, in his right an enormous revolver.
The swarthy man closed the door to the storeroom, locked it, and shaking his head, moved purposefully down the hallway to a door at the front of the warehouse. He stopped and knocked, and as an unintelligible grunt issued from inside, he opened the door and entered.
"I got 'em," he announced.
Across the room a portly gentleman with a white mane and great shaggy black eyebrows looked up from a sheaf of papers on the desk before him.
"Them?" he said. "I told you just to pick up Pillsworth and finish him off."
The swarthy man glanced away, embarrassed. "I couldn't finish him off, congressman. He wasn't even started. I went to the hospital, like you told me, to make sure about Pillsworth—and I was going along the hall lookin' for this place where they cut 'em up—and all of a sudden there was a racket like a lot of people runnin' around and yellin', so I ducked into this closet to keep under cover. Well, I was only in there a little bit when all of a sudden somebody yanks the door open and this guy and this dame come shaggin' in with hardly any clothes on. So I kept quiet and listened."
"I'm not interested in the sordid doings behind the scenes at the hospital," Congressman Entwerp interrupted. "Stick to the pertinent facts."
"Oh, no, it wasn't nothin' like that. I just listened and pretty soon it come up in what they were sayin' that this guy with the dame is none other than Pillsworth himself. And believe me, congressman, I can't explain it, but there ain't a thing wrong with him—physically."
"Physically?" the congressman asked. "What do you mean?"
"The guy's mentally a mess," the thug said. "So's this dame with him. She's a terrific lookin' little job, but crazy as a coot. It's a dirty shame."
"How do you know they're crazy?"
"Just ask Hank. He drove the car. All the way over from the hospital they kept talkin' to this guy who wasn't there, and bawlin' him out for followin' them everyplace. They called him George, and they carried on a regular conversation with him. It was weird, leave me tell you. But one thing, this guy George, whoever he is, is lucky he doesn't exist; the way that little dame kept tellin' him what she was going to do to him if he didn't show himself and help them out of this jam was enough to curl your hair. Pillsworth was all the time tellin' this imaginary character what a ghoul he was to be hangin' around just to see him get killed. They're both nuts, boss, an' no lie!"
"Maybe it was just an act," Congressman Entwerp suggested skeptically.
"I don't think so. You'd really have to feel mean to say some of the stuff those two was dishin' out to this George." The thug paused and withdrew Toffee's thought gadget from his pocket. "Look what I lifted off the dame in the closet." He placed it on the desk before the congressman. "She's plenty hot to get it back. You'd think it was somethin' worth somethin'."
"What is it?"
"I don't know. Some sort of two-way flashlight, I guess. Just a piece of junk."
The congressman bent his shaggy head close over the gadget and examined it minutely. He picked it up, weighed it in his hand, then shrugged and dropped it negligently into his pocket.
"Let's have a look at these two crackpots," he said, rising from his chair. "We'll have to dispose of them, of course."
"Okay," the thug said. "I just hope they've got things settled with this George before we get there."
Back in the storeroom, however, events were lurching ahead in a most uncertain manner. Things had started with an air of mild strangeness and mounted swiftly to a state of wild-eyed madness.
Finding themselves confined and in the hands of blood-thirsting murderers, Marc and Toffee had paused only momentarily to survey their musty prison, the cases of wines, brandies and whiskies stacked along the walls, before returning to the subject uppermost in their minds. Toffee, doubling her fists, addressed herself to the room at large.
"George," she said evenly, "we know you're with us. You gave yourself away in the car when you let that foot materialize, and you'll give yourself away again. And when you do, brother, I'm going to kick your teeth out one at a time and have them made into shirt studs. I'm going to...!"
"It's no use threatening him," Marc interrupted. "He's got the advantage. He's just hanging around waiting for me to be killed. And he'll probably have his way before they're done with us."
In answer, a stifled yawn echoed from somewhere in back of them. Toffee whirled about.
"Listen to him!" she fumed. "Now he's rubbing it in! That was the most put-on yawn I ever heard."
She started forward, but Marc put out a hand to stop her. He drew her toward the corner.
"Listen," he said in lowered tones, "I've just thought of something. Maybe we can trap him."
"We certainly should be able to," Toffee agreed hotly. "George is pure rat, through and through. If we only had some cheese...."
"What about whiskey?" Marc asked. "There's plenty of it here, and where George is concerned it's the best bait in the world."
"I wonder why he hasn't been at it already?" Toffee said, surveying the crates along the walls. "The place is practically seething with the stuff."
"He's too smart," Marc said. "He doesn't want to show where he is. By the time he opened a crate and got the bottle out we'd have him located. He's afraid we'd slug him."
"Of course we'd slug him," Toffee said. "I personally intend to bop the living bejesus out of him at the very first opportunity. What difference does that make?"
"He knows what we're after," Marc explained. "He knows we want him to show himself to these people so they won't know which one of us is me. And look what happened to George the last time he was knocked out."
Toffee looked up with a smile of understanding. "Of course!" she said. "He lost control of his ectoplasm and materialized."
"Exactly," Marc said, "and it might happen again. Then it would not be just a matter of confusing them with the two of us. If George materialized we could leave him to take the rap all by himself."
"Wonderful!" Toffee said. "Let's do it. It would serve everybody right. How do we trap him?"
"It's simple," Marc said. "We open the crates and get the bottles outforGeorge. At first we pretend to forget about him; we sit around and act like we're swilling down whiskey by the gallon and having the time of our lives. This will drive George close to madness, locked in a room with two drinkers and no drop for himself. When we figure he's sufficiently worked up, we'll weaken and offer him a drink. He won't be able to resist. While one of us hands over his bottle, the other takes a fix on George's position and bashes the daylights out of him with this." Marc permitted himself a smile of pride. "You see?"
"Marvelous," Toffee said. "I particularly love that part at the end, where George gets bashed. Can I be the basher?"
"Okay," Marc agreed. "Let's go. And remember, act as though you've never enjoyed drinking anything so much in your whole life."
With tremendous nonchalance, the two moved across the room to the stacked crates.
"My, my," Marc said in a declamatory, radio announcer's tone, "what do you suppose we have here in all these interesting-looking crates?"
"I should think," Toffee said on cue, "that they contain bottles of fine old tangy whiskey. Of course that's just a random guess, but I believe it's a shrewd one. Shall we have a look?"
"Oh, let's!" Marc cried, with a false grin of eagerness. He turned slightly in what he presumed to be George's direction. "A drink of fine old tangy whiskey would certainly taste mighty good just now."
"I can think of nothing better!" Toffee said, smacking her lips loudly. "My mouth fairly waters!"
Marc reached one of the crates down and, placing it on the floor, pried up one of the slats. He reached out two bottles and handed one toward Toffee.
"Well, well," he cried with studied joviality. "Look what I found!"
Toffee clapped her hands after the manner of a witless child. "Oh, goody!" she gurgled. "Some of that wonderful fine old tangy whiskey! Just what I hoped for!" She took the bottle, opened it and took a swallow. She blanched and covered her face with her hand. "Ugh!" she rasped.
"Yes, sir!" Marc said, lifting his bottle to his mouth. "Some of the finest, oldest and tangyest fine old tangy whiskey there is." He rolled his eyes in broad anticipation. "Yes, sir, bedad!"
"It's a good thing you said that before you tasted the stuff," Toffee hissed between clenched teeth. "You'd never have the breath afterward."
The warning came too late; Marc had already downed a large swallow. He closed his eyes and gagged. Like Toffee, however, he forced a frozen smile through his tears and rubbed his stomach luxuriously. "Umm-umm," he managed to say. "It sure hits the spot."
"And leaves it in ruins," Toffee agreed. "They must cook this stuff up in old lye vats."
"Keep drinking," Marc whispered urgently. "And look happy."
"Okay," Toffee said grimly. "I'll die with a smile on my face, but it'll be the lie of the century." She lifted the bottle gamely and drank. "Oh, boy!" she rasped through drawn lips, "this whiskey is the answer to a drunkard's prayer."
Marc drank dutifully in turn. "You said it!" he announced, tears streaming from his eyes. "It's delicious!"
"I could go on drinking it forever," Toffee wheezed, taking another gulp and clutching her throat. "It's so smooth!"
"Makes you want more and more," Marc said, shaking his head to clear it after a third libation. "It gives you a real boost."
"Let's not carry it too far," Toffee whispered. "If I drink any more of this mange medicine I won't be able to hit the barnside of a broad."
"Broadside of a barn," Marc corrected her weakly. "But you're right. We'd better make the pitch while we're still conscious."
Toffee nodded and made a great show of registering happy inspiration. "Say," she cried, "you know who would just love this whiskey?"
"No," Marc replied like the second part in a minstrel skit. "Who?"
"George!" Toffee said. "You remember good old George?"
Marc nodded vigorously. "Wouldn't he be just crazy about whiskey like this?"
"He certainly would. Crazy mad, he'd be. Isn't it too bad he's not here?" Then Toffee brightened. "But perhaps he is! You never can tell about good old George."
"But when we were talking to him earlier he didn't answer."
"Perhaps he misunderstood something one of us said," Toffee suggested. "Maybe he didn't understand our type of humor and got offended. You know, like when I said I was going to gouge his eyes out? A harmless remark to most people, but perhaps not so to good old George."
"True," Marc said sagely. "George always was sensitive." He glanced around the room. "George?" he called. "If you're here, old man, how about having a drink with us? If we said anything to hurt your feelings we certainly didn't mean to."
He paused to listen. There was a hesitant shuffling across the room.
"Well ..." a voice said uneasily.
Marc and Toffee exchanged glances of triumph.
"You mustn't miss out on this, old man," Marc cajoled. "You really mustn't."
"And it will make such a nice friendly gesture," Toffee put in, "to show that you forgive us our thoughtless little jibes."
"Well," the voice returned, a shade less hesitant. "I am a little dry."
"Of course you are," Marc said jovially, "and we have the very thing to bring you comfort and contentment. Just step over here and I'll give you this whole bottle."
"No tricks?" George asked warily.
"George!" Toffee said, thoroughly scandalized, "how can you even entertain such a notion?"
"Just to show you," Marc said, "why don't you stay invisible? You're perfectly safe that way."
"Okay," George agreed. "Just hold out the bottle."
"Right-oh," Marc said and turned to Toffee. "Give it everything," he whispered. Toffee nodded.
As Marc held out the bottle, Toffee sighted on the area in line with his hand, on the principle that George, being a duplicate of Marc, his head would be on the same level. The best strategy, she felt, was to concentrate on this area as swiftly and violently as possible. She held the bottle in readiness and when, a moment later, the bottle jogged in Marc's hand, she was prepared. She swung as hard as she could in a wide horizontal swipe. About half way, the bottle jarred to an abrupt stop and shattered, spewing liquid and glass in all directions. This was subsequently followed by a surprised moan and a heavy thudding sound in the vicinity of the floor.
"Got him!" Toffee cried jubilantly. "Smashed him right on the button!" She dropped the jagged neck of the bottle daintily to the floor.
"He's still invisible," Marc said worriedly. "I hope there'll be developments."
Developments came almost immediately, and they were well worth watching, though hardly the sight for sore eyes. Marc's calculations had been correct. Surprised, as it were, into unconsciousness, George had completely lost control of his ectoplasm. The trouble, though, was that instead of splashing out through his body all of a piece, it trickled out in fits and starts.
What appeared on the floor, under Marc's and Toffee's watchful eyes, was not George in total, but a sort of jig-saw George in which many of the vital pieces had been omitted. While one could be grateful for George's head, there was bound to be a pang of regret for the neck which had failed to appear.
An arm lay to the left, with only a finger or two to indicate that it had once blossomed a hand. Had there ever been an expression to the effect that half a torso was better than none, George had disproved it beyond measure; a torso, apparently severed from the collar bone to the mid-riff was so much worse than no torso at all as to be positively hair-raising. A random foot here, an errant knee cap there only garnished the over-all picture of hideous human butchery. With a shudder of revulsion, Toffee turned from the awful sight.
"Leave it to George," she said, "just leave it to that monster to be as revolting as possible."
"I don't suppose it's really his fault," Marc said fairly, "but I wish he were invisible again."
It was at this moment that the congressman and his henchman, having completed their discussion in the front of the warehouse, arrived at the door of the storeroom and fitted a key to the lock.
"Duck!" Toffee said. "Get behind those crates!"
"What about you?"
"I'm going to get my invention back. Besides they can't hurt me, and the important thing is to give you a chance to escape."
"Okay," Marc nodded and faded into the dimness behind the crates.
Toffee moved to the nearest stack of boxes, boosted herself atop them and leaned back in an attitude of relaxed languor. She watched from the corner of her eye as the door swung open and the congressman and the thug advanced into the room. She lifted her gaze dreamily to the ceiling and began to hum quietly to herself.
"There she is, boss," the thug said. "There's the dame, up there."
"My word!" Congressman Entwerp said. "Where did Pillsworth ever pick her up?"
"In a Turkish bath, I guess, before they passed out the towels."
Toffee turned slowly and observed the two with heavy disdain.
"Please be quiet," she drawled, "you're disturbing my meditations."
"Where's Pillsworth?" the thug asked.
Toffee shrugged. "Somewhere around, I suppose."
"Okay, sister," the thug growled, "cut out the jazz. Where is he?"
"You're sure you want to know?"
"We insist," Congressman Entwerp said.
"Then just step nearer," Toffee said with an airy wave, "and feast your eyes. You will find Mr. Pillsworth—more or less—on the floor, just to the right of these boxes. I'm sure you'll excuse him if he doesn't rise to greet you."
Warily, the two men edged closer. Then suddenly the thug, catching sight of George in his disconnected condition, stopped short. His mouth worked soundlessly, and his eyes rolled loosely in their sockets. The congressman, not yet aware of George, looked at him.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked shortly. "Why are you standing there making faces? Stop that and...!"
The tirade ended abruptly as the congressman's gaze fell to George. He lost his breath in a thin wheeze.
For a long moment the two men simply goggled, then slowly they turned away.
"You fool!" the congressman screamed. "I only told you to finish him off, not to hack him up into cutlets!"
"But I didn't!" the thug said shakenly. "He was all right when I locked him in here."
"Then, who...!"
Together, the two of them turned and regarded Toffee with incredulous eyes. Toffee returned their stares with innocent directness.
"Yes, gentlemen?" she murmured.
"Did you...?" the congressman began, then broke off with a shudder.
"Did I what?" Toffee asked demurely.
"What the congressman means," the thug said in a whisper, "is did you ... dothat?"
"Oh, that," Toffee said. She returned her gaze thoughtfully to the ceiling as though trying to remember. Finally she shook her head. "No," she said. "I'm certain that's not one of my jobs. Too messy."
The men gaped.
"Holy smoke!" the thug quavered. "What happened to him?"
"Who knows?" Toffee shrugged. "Maybe he has some horrible disease. I figure it's his business."
"Good God!" the congressman breathed. "We've got to get him off our hands. We'll have to be careful, though. The hospital has the entire police force out looking for him. It's on the radio. If we were caught with him in that condition the party wouldn't like it."
"Nobody would like it," the thug said. "Shall we dump him in the river?"
The congressman shook his head. "Too many patrolmen around. There must be...." His voice trailed off into thoughtful silence. Finally he nodded with decision. "We won't try to hide him. We'll deliver him to the police just as he is—in an automobile crash. The girl too."
"Huh?" the thug said. "How do you mean?"
"It's simple enough. Pillsworth looks like a crash victim, so why don't we just let him be one? Go get a sack or something to carry him out in." He turned and moved toward the door. "I'll have Hank fix up one of the cars."
"Good night, boss," the thug said plaintively, following after him, "you mean I've got to pick him up—with my hands!"
The moment they were gone, locking the door after them, Toffee jumped down from her perch and Marc appeared from the shadows.
"Do you know who that was?" Marc asked excitedly.
"The old bird with the sable hair-do?"
Marc nodded. "It's Congressman Entwerp. I should have known he was behind this mess. And that isn't all; those crates of cheap whiskey are just a front. Underneath there's enough bacteria culture to wipe out the whole country. These boys are planning mass murder!"
"Also individual murder," Toffee said.
"What?"
"They're going to arrange an auto crash. When the wreckage is sorted out George and I will be prominent amongst the demolished extras."
"Good grief!"
"It's nothing to worry about," Toffee said. "After all, they can't possibly kill me—or George either, for that matter. In the meantime you can contact the police and see that they're arrested. There's just one thing though; you're going to have to get the police without letting the police get you."
"Huh?"
"It seems the entire force is out scouring the city for you, and I get the impression that they're supposed to rush you along to the operating room without messing around with any conversation."
"Golly," Marc said. "How am I going to work it? Even if I get a chance to tell them about Entwerp, they'll just think I'm delirious."
"Be your own bait," Toffee suggested. "Entwerp will be busy murdering George and me. All you have to do is get the cops to chase you to the scene of the crime so they can catch him red-handed. I'll see to it that the door's left unlocked long enough for you to get out of here...." She stopped as the key sounded again in the lock. "Anyway, work it out as you go along, and I'll see you later..."
"What took so long?" the congressman demanded. He was standing by the green sedan, holding the door open.
"It was the dame," the thug said breathlessly. "When I turned to lock up the storeroom, she let out a yip and took off. I had to chase her all over the joint before I caught her."
At his side, Toffee shook her head to get the hair out of her eyes. "I just wanted a little exercise to get up the circulation," she said.
"We certainly circulated," the thug agreed sourly. "All over the place."
"You didn't leave the storeroom open?" the congressman asked.
"I went back and locked it."
"I see you got Pillsworth in the car."
"Yeah," the thug said. "But he handled awful funny, like he was all strung together with invisible wire. I had a job spreadin' him out in the seat."
The congressman looked at him sharply. "You've probably been drinking that dummy whiskey again," he said. "Anyway, let's get going. The girl will have to drive."
"I don't know how to drive," Toffee said. "Besides, I haven't got a license."
"Never mind, sister," the thug said, "that's even better." He nudged her toward the door of the car, as the congressman moved off into the night. Toffee gazed inward at the dismembered George sprawled across the seat.
"Do I have to get in there with him?" she asked.
"The boss doesn't want you to be lonesome," the thug said.
"I'd rather be lonesome," Toffee said, but she got into the car anyway.
The thug closed the door after her and leaned through the window.
"Just so you'll know," he said, "I'd better explain. This car hasn't any brakes, and the steering is fixed. It's okay now, but after a few minutes it will break and the car will be out of control. We have it timed out with the curve at the end of the speedway, the one called Dead Man's Curve. By the time you reach that the wheel will be just about as much good to you as a set of knitting needles. In other words, you're going to drive due south with your foot to the floor and crack up on the curve. No one's missed that curve yet and lived."
"There's always a first time," Toffee said brightly.
"Don't count on it, sugar. And just to make sure you do what you're told, the congressman and me will be alongside in the congressman's car. I personally will be holding a rod aimed at your head, so don't get notions. Also, we want to be around to report the accident."
Toffee nodded approvingly. "It only seems the sort of thing any good citizen would do," she said.
The gunman stared at her. "Too bad a good looking dame like you has to be so wacky."
"We all have our little flaws," Toffee said chattily. "That's life."
"Aren't you even worried?"
Toffee shook her head. "I've always wanted to learn to drive," she said, smiling.
"Oh, my God!" the thug moaned. "Maybe, it's best; you're sure to kill yourself sooner or later anyway."
"Of course," Toffee said, patting his hand. "I don't want you to blame yourself. Just consider you're doing a public service."
Meanwhile, a lanky figure had emerged warily from the warehouse and was lurking, in a twitchy sort of way, in the dimness of the alley. Obscured in shadow, Marc had watched Toffee get into the green sedan, the thug instructing her in the art of driving. He glanced anxiously down the street, praying for a police car.
A small coupe, with a man and woman inside, pulled up to the curb at the end of the block, and the man got out and disappeared into the telegraph office on the corner. But that was all.
Marc jumped as he heard the green sedan start up. He turned to see a black limousine, driven by the congressman, pull up beside it. The thug crossed and got inside and a moment later the barrel of a gun caught light from the window. Time was seeping out.
Ducking from cover, Marc raced for the coupe and the waiting woman on the corner. Reaching it, he threw the door open and jumped inside. The woman, a faded blonde, pressed back against the seat with a startled cry. Marc, however, was too relieved at finding the key in the ignition to notice.
He started the car, threw it into gear and set it in motion almost in a single action. The woman's reaction to this was a shrill, braying scream.
"Please," Marc said distractedly. "Don't." The woman screamed again. "Do you have to do that?" he asked annoyedly.
"I have to do something, don't I?" the woman enquired wretchedly. "I can't just sit here, can I?"
"I don't see why not," Marc said, peering down the street intently. "It doesn't help anything to scream like that."
"It helps me plenty," the woman retorted hotly. "When naked men come leaping into a lady's car and driving her off to God knows what, it gives her a great satisfaction to scream." As though to prove her point she paused to scream again. "Anyway, it makes her feel a hell of a lot better."
"I don't see why," Marc said with rising irritation.
"Well, put yourself in my place," the woman snapped. "What would you do if a naked man came leaping into your car?"
"Naked men don't leap into my car." Marc said self-righteously. "I wouldn't let them."
"Are you suggesting that I invite naked men to come leaping into my car?" the woman asked frigidly. "I'll have you know...."
"The way you carry on about it," Marc said, "one just automatically draws his own conclusions. One pictures a whole procession of naked men just waiting their turn to leap into your car, you're such an authority on these occasions."
For a moment the blonde fell into a sulky silence. She glanced out the window at the rapidly passing scenery.
"What I want to know," she said at length, "is what is my husband going to say."
"Not knowing your husband," Marc said, "I'm in no position to guess. If I were you I'd judge by the way he's expressed himself on other similar occasions."
"There you go again," the woman said, "insulting me. Where are you taking me?"
"I'm not taking you anywhere," Marc said. "I'm taking myself. You just happened to be here."
"Oh," the woman said, not, it seemed, without a touch of disappointment. There was another lapse of silence.
"Do you know where there's a cop?" Marc asked, after a few more blocks.
"If I did," the woman said, "I'd be with him instead of you. What do you want with a cop?"
"I've got to find one," Marc said anxiously. "It means everything."
By this time the woman had resigned herself to the unhappy fact that she was out for a spin with a raving lunatic. She nodded sagely, as though agreeing with this last remark entirely.
"Sure," she said, "sometimes I feel that way myself. Cops are everything. It just sweeps over me all of a heap."
"What sweeps over you?" Marc asked absently.
"Cops," the woman said.
"Do you think you ought to be making these little confessions to a total stranger?" Marc asked distastefully. "Or do you mean your husband is a cop?"
"Of course not," the woman said. "My husband is a butcher. What's that got to do with it? I was just saying that sometimes cops just seem to surge over me." She giggled with nervous desperation. "A sort of blue serge, you might say."
"Well," Marc said, "since you seem to know all these cops so well, you ought to be able to tell me where they hang out."
"I don't know all these cops," the woman said.
"You mean they're a bunch of total strangers?" Marc asked, thoroughly shocked. "My word!"
"Couldn't we just drop the subject?" the woman asked defeatedly. "I'm all confused somehow."
"I should think you would be confused," Marc agreed. His voice trailed away on a rising inflection as he spotted a police car parked at the curb across the street. "Cops!" he breathed. He glanced ahead. "You see that green sedan up ahead with the black limousine beside it?"
The woman nodded vaguely. "The one that just cut up over the sidewalk? What about it?"
"Keep your eye on it," Marc instructed, "while I get the cop's attention. It's a matter of life and death."
The green sedan, as it turned out, was eminently worth keeping an eye on. Toffee, beleaguered as she was with the mechanics of keeping the vehicle in motion, had come upon other problems. Early in the game, feeling vague stirrings at her side, she had looked around to see George's dismembered head yawn thickly and open its eyes. Then, as if this wasn't loathsome enough, a set of fingers wriggled to the edge of the seat, gripped it and boosted the halved torso around so that the disjointed feet dropped to the floor. George, rising from unconsciousness had hauled himself into a sitting position. Toffee looked on this development without favor.
"Stay down, George," she hissed. "Get back where you were."
The head swiveled around hideously, a wounded look in its eyes.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said sadly. "You hit me."
"And I'll hit you again," Toffee promised, "if you don't get down."
George merely looked baffled at this. "Where are we goin'?" he asked.
"To an accident," Toffee said.
George's face brightened. "Was Marc in it?" he asked.
"It hasn't happened yet," Toffee explained. "We're going to be in it, you and I. In fact, we're the whole accident."
"Huh?" George said, edging up a bit. "Us?"
"That's right," Toffee nodded. "They figure we know too much."
"Too much about what?"
"About this subversive business," Toffee said. "They think we know their plan to overthrow the government."
"So they're going to kill us in an accident?"
"Uh-huh."
"Aren't you scared?"
Toffee shrugged. "Why should I be? I'm a product of Marc's mind. I can't possibly be destroyed unless he is. And he's perfectly safe."
"He is?" George said, his voice heavy with disappointment. "Why don't these people want to kill him?"
"They think they are killing him," Toffee said. "They think you're Marc. In fact they believe you're already dead."
"What!" George cried. "You mean I'm acting as a decoy to save Marc's life?"
Toffee nodded smugly. "Some onions, eh, George?"
"Stop the car!" George shouted. "Let me out!"
"No brakes," Toffee said. She nodded toward the limousine. "Besides, they won't let me. You'd better get down in the seat or they'll think it's funny."
"I hope they do," George said sullenly. "I hope they think it's funny as hell and do something about it. It's so damned unfair." And with that he leaned across Toffee, jutted his head out the window and began baying in the direction of the limousine.
"Stop that!" Toffee said. "It sounds awful."
George swiveled his frightful head around in her direction. "It should," he said. "It's theTorment Lament. I learned it in the Moaning Chorus and it's guaranteed to drive you mad in nothing flat." He turned back to the night and the limousine and sent his voice wailing into the wind.
It was an effort that was not lost on its audience. The occupants of the limousine looked around sharply with horrified eyes.
"Jesus in Heaven!" the thug gasped.
At his side the congressman was so taken with the fearsome recital that he completely forgot he was driving. As the car careened dangerously, the thug reached out and pulled the wheel.
"Isn't it awful, boss?" he breathed.
"Awful doesn't begin to tell it," the congressman choked. "It's—it'sawful!"
"Yeah. That's what I mean to say."
"How can anything sound like that?" the congressman asked hauntedly.
"If it can look like that," the thug said, "I guess it shouldn't have no trouble soundin' like that."
"And look at that girl, will you? She's actually talking to the filthy thing."
"She looks plenty hot under the collar."
"Why not? I'd be sore as hell myself."
"When do we get to the curve, boss?"
"I don't know," the congressman said. "But I can't wait. The sooner that car crashes and takes that frightful thing with it the better."
Meanwhile, as the two cars skidded and reeled toward the appointed spot of disaster, Marc continued to loiter several blocks behind. Having deliberately cut across traffic in the middle of the block, he pulled up beside the police car and leaned out the window.
"I just cut across traffic!" he called out.
The cop behind the wheel left his conversation with his companion and observed Marc dubiously.
"So what?" he asked. "You want me to give you a gold star on your driver's license?"
"I don't have a driver's license," Marc offered hopefully. "What are you going to do about it, you big, thick-headed slob?"
The cop turned back to his partner. "A kidder, we've got here," he said. He turned back to Marc. "Beat it, comedian, you and your girl friend take off."
"Aren't you going to chase me?" Marc asked. "I'm a lawbreaker."
"Move along, chum," the cop drawled, "before I sell you a ticket to the orphan's picnic."
"But you'vegotto chase me," Marc said urgently.
"No I don't, friend," the cop said. "I've got to sit here and listen for radio leads on this goofy Pillsworth guy."
"But that's me!" Marc said. "I'm Pillsworth!"
The cop looked at him with forced patience. "Sure, sure," he said. "And I'm Miss Atlantic City. Beat it." He turned back to his companion.
"What if I told you I knew where a murder was going to happen?" Marc ventured.
The cop looked around. "You're just full of news, aren't you?" he said, and turned away again.
For a moment Marc sat in silent indecision. Then he turned to the blonde.
"Why don't you scream?" he asked.
"Why should I?" the woman asked interestedly. "Do you really know where a murder's going to happen?"
"You said screaming made you feel good," Marc suggested.
"I feel fine," the woman said. "I always do with a lot of stuff going on. Who's going to get murdered?"
Marc glanced desperately from the woman to the cops and back again. A determined look came into his eyes. He cautiously extended two fingers to the woman's thigh. "I'm sorry," he said, and pinched as hard as he could.
The results were everything to be wished for—and more. Stiffening in her seat, the woman let out a bleat that surpassed even her previous efforts. Even George might have envied the torment in her voice as it soared, swooped, scaled the heights and dipped into soul-shattering depths. At its completion, the blonde turned and took a clawing swipe at Marc's face.
Marc ducked. "That's the stuff!" he said happily, noting from the corner of his eye that he had finally gained the undivided attention of the police force. Pinching the blonde again and nodding his satisfaction at the second chorus, he threw the coupe into gear, cut across traffic and headed down the speedway. It was only a moment before the wail of a siren mingled with the shrill vocalizations of his companion. He pushed the gas feed to the floor.
To the witnesses along the speedway, the pedestrians, the vendors, the shop owners and just plain malingerers, the events of the evening were never entirely clear. Some, judging simply by the volume of noise, settled for the notion that what had passed was nothing more than an overly exuberant wedding procession. The sticklers, however, rejected this notion flatly, pointing to the significant details of the affair.
Which, they demanded to know, was the wedding couple? Certainly it couldn't have been the redhead and the wailing man in the green sedan; certainly no bride—or at least very few—had ever used that kind of language to her groom on the wedding night. And it took the most wretched husband years to achieve the note of despair which this poor fellow was loosing on the evening air.
As for the black limousine, that was out. Though its occupants seemed locked together in some sort of mad embrace, the arrangement appeared to have its roots in terror rather than affection.
The couple in the coupe that followed was even more difficult to wedge into the picture of the young couple united. After all, wasn't she screaming her lungs out and hammering on his head with both fists?
As for the police who followed—and they probably knew the truth of the matter—they looked shocked to the core. So there simply wasn't any answer for it until the morning papers came out.
The participants in the demented chase along the speedway, however, were far too engrossed in their own problems to care for the conflict they introduced into the lives of innocent bystanders. Toffee, for one, could not have been less concerned; she was too mad at George.
"Stop that caterwauling!" she yelled. "Stop it, you idiot."
George pulled his disconnected head inside the window and eyed Toffee owlishly. His other parts adjusted themselves and the head sank into Toffee's lap. There, gazing up at her, it lazily crossed its eyes and began to whimper piteously.
"Ugh!" Toffee cried. "I'll go mad!"
The head relaxed its face obligingly into an expression of feeble-minded delight, letting its tongue loll loosely from the corner of its mouth.
"That's all!" Toffee screamed. "I'm getting out of here!"
Without further consideration for the occupants of the limousine and the approaching curve, she relinquished the wheel, threw the car door open, and with one last agonized glance at the loathsome head, which was now foaming prettily at the mouth, prepared to depart its company. In the limousine this bit of action was not unobserved.
"She's trying to get away!" the congressman yelled. "Stop her!"
The thug turned to the window and looked. "Get back!" he hollered. "Get back or I'll blast you!"
"Go ahead," Toffee cried. "It'll be a positive pleasure next to what I've just been through."
"Okay!" the thug said grimly. "You asked for it!"
His finger closed down on the trigger. It was just at that moment, however, that the green sedan, no longer benefitted by a driver, swerved toward the limousine, throwing Toffee back inside. The congressman cramped the wheel of the limousine sharply to avoid a crash. The gunman, thrown sharply against the door, fired wildly into the night. From the rear there was the sound of screeching tires and forced brakes.
"Good night!" the congressman panted, righting the limousine as the green sedan veered away again. "What did you hit?"
"I think it was that coupe back there," the thug said, peering out the window. "I must have hit a tire: it's out of control."
"Good Lord!" the congressman yelled, "the curve's right ahead! We're pinned in between them. We're going to crash. Everybody's going to crash!"
No sooner was this dire prediction out of the congressman's mouth than it became a deafening reality. Ahead, the green sedan raced headlong into the concrete embankment with a rending smash and almost literally flattened itself into two dimensions.
This was the signal for the two lesser crashes that followed. The limousine engaged its radiator forcibly into the wreckage just in time to receive a skidding broadside from the coupe.
A moment of silence followed, emphasized by the approaching scream of a siren. The police car jolted to a stop and the two cops ran forward to the scene of destruction. They reached the coupe first.
"Here!" the first cop said. "What's going on?"
The faded blonde jutted her head out of the window. "He blew out my tire!" she rasped. "Not to mention all that pinching!"
"Pinching?" the cop asked curiously. "What kind of pinching, lady? Where?"
"All kinds of pinching," the woman said evilly. "Everywhere."
The cop peered at Marc. "Why's he dressed in that nightshirt?"
"How should I know?" the woman said. "Maybe he thinks he's cute or something."
The cop leaned closer. "Here, you," he said, "why are you dressed like that?"
"I'm tired," Marc said exhaustedly, "and I want to go to bed. I had a little drink about an hour ago...."
"Stop that now," the cop barked. "No nonsense."
"But it's all perfectly true," Marc said.
The cop started to speak further, but he caught sight of the congressman and his companion climbing out of the limousine and tore himself away.
"There are people dying in that car!" the congressman shouted tragically, hurrying forward. "It's awful, officer!"
"All maimed and cut up," the thug put in. "Loose heads and legs and stuff all over the place."
"Have you seen them?" the policeman asked.
"Well, they must be," the congressman put in quickly. "How could it be otherwise? The man in the car is Marc Pillsworth. I saw him just before the crash."
The policeman did a take. "Yeah?"
"Sure," the thug said excitedly. "Only now he's all cut up—loose head and arms and...!"
"Shut up," the congressman snapped.
"They might still be alive," the cop said. "We've got to do something about it."
"Indeed we do," the congressman said. "Perhaps we can assist them."
"Come on," the cop said. "You can give a hand."
Dutifully the three turned to the sedan. They turned and then stopped with a harmonized gasp, the cop taking the bass. In the moment of their turning there had been a sudden movement in the car and the door had swung partially open. In the opening there appeared a leg of provocative shapeliness.
"A leg!" the thug shuddered. "I told you!"
"A dame's leg," the cop breathed. "And just think what the rest of her must have been like with a leg like that! Just imagine...!" He sucked in his breath as the leg began to show unexpected signs of life. It quivered, turned and was quickly joined by a mate of equal perfection. It was only a moment before Toffee appeared in total, quite unmarked. Her mood, however, was hostile. Quitting the ruined car she turned back to the door and thrust her head inside.
"Of all the beastly, rotten, evil-minded, stinking things to do to a girl!" she snapped. "Come out of there you slimy-souled son of Satan and fight like a man. I'll teach you to make foul passes at a girl when she is stuck under a clutch. I'll show you...!"
"Good gosh!" the cop said. "Who's she talking to?"
"She must be hysterical," the congressman said, thoroughly shaken. "Probably got a crack on the head and isn't accountable for what she's saying."
"That's certainly no way to talk to the dead," the cop said.
"It's no way to talk to the living," the thug said. "If she hauled off at me like that I'd rather be dead."
"The poor child's obviously insane," the congressman said firmly. "There's no question about it."
Meanwhile Toffee was still at it. "Come out of there, you hulking lout," she grated, "before I come in there and drag you out by your ears!"
"Poor little thing," the cop said sadly. "She really believes Mr. Pillsworth can come out of that car. She refuses to believe he's dead."
By now Toffee had stepped forward and yanked the door all the way open. As the three in the background stared in varying degrees of apprehension, a thin figure in a brief linen gown crawled out on its hands and knees. The congressman swayed slightly as though about to faint.
"You look more natural down on all fours, you beast," Toffee rasped. "I ought to kick you right in the slats. Get up and try to face me if you've the nerve!"
Apparently the shock of the accident had given George's ectoplasm a further jolt for now he was completely materialized. He looked up at Toffee ruefully and got to his feet.
"I was only trying to get you loose," he said.
"The way you were pawing me was enough to get any girl loose," Toffee said. "Just don't try it again."
"Gawd a'mighty!" the thug whispered. "Pillsworth!"
"Pillsworth?" the cop said. "But that's the same guy who was pinching the other dame in the coupe. My gosh! how he gets around!"
Just then the other policeman, who had retreated to the background, arrived on the scene with Marc and the blonde in custody.
"Hey," he said, "I caught this creep on the creep. He was trying to sneak out."
The cop looked quickly at Marc, then back to George. "It's the same guy!" he said. "Which one of you birds is Pillsworth?"
Marc and George went smoothly into their routine of pointing to each other in unison.
"He is!" they said.
The cop turned to Toffee. "Do you know which is which?" he asked.
"Sure," Toffee said and nodded at George. "He's Pillsworth."
"She's crazy," George retorted hotly. "She's as crazy as bedbugs in a bathtub."
"That's right," the thug put in. "She's a looney if there ever was one."
Marc moved urgently to gain the cop's attention. "You've got to arrest that man," he said, pointing at the congressman. "He's a subversive and a murderer."
The congressman whirled about. "You must be insane, sir!" he rasped in frantic denial.
"Youmust be," Marc said. "You must have been ripe for the hatch years ago."
"You're a fine one to talk," the blonde put in nastily. "Officer, this man is off his rocker like a busted hobby horse. He's done nothing but pinch me ever since we met."
Toffee levelled her gaze at Marc. "What were you doing pinching that tomato?" she demanded. "Just what were you getting at?"
"Oh, don't be crazy," Marc said distractedly.
"Oh, so I'm crazy, am I?" Toffee said, doubling her fists.
"You sure are, sister," the thug put in. "You're the most hopped up dame I ever saw." He turned to the cop. "She ought to be locked up."
"Oh, yeah?" Toffee said. "At least I didn't put anyone in a busted car and send them off to get killed. Officer, I want you to arrest that killer."
"Look, officer," Marc insisted, "you've got to take this man into custody. He's a menace to the whole country."
"If you take anyone in, officer," the blonde put in harshly, "make it this skinny bimbo. Pinch him like he pinched me."
The congressman moved in aggressively toward Marc. "You're making slanderous accusations!" he blustered. "You should be committed to an institution!"
"You're crazy!" Marc raged.
"You'recrazy!" the blonde screeched.
"You'recrazy!" Toffee hollered at the blonde.
"You'recrazy!" the thug insisted moodily.
The cop turned dizzily to his companion and held out a palsied hand. "Hurry!" he pleaded, "call the wagon, and let's take the whole bunch of them in. In another minuteI'mgoing to be crazy!"
The morning sun poured through the high windows of the courtroom, wasting its brightness on a scene of sullen dementia. Judge Carper's heavy face had achieved a shade of dyspeptic vermillion in record time this morning. Even the flies clung to the walls in muted terror as his gavel banged on the substantial wood of the bench and set the room atremble.
"Silence!" the judge roared. "Silence, damnit! And if one more defendant makes just one more crack about the sanity of any other defendant I'll lock the whole crew of you up and melt the key down for a watch fob." He ran his shaking hand over his forehead. "Besides, so far I don't even know which ones of you are the defendants and which are the complainants." He turned to the policeman. "Do you know?"
"I'm not sure," the cop admitted uneasily. "I think they're all both."
"Both what?" the judge asked confusedly.
"Both defendants and complainants. As far as I can tell everybody's mad as hell at everybody else. It sort of goes around in a circle."
"And I'm burned up at the lot of them," the judge said malignantly. "Who are those two over there without any clothes on?"
"I think they lost their clothes in the crash," the cop said vaguely. "The guy is really two guys, so it's hard to tell."
"What?"
"There are really two guys like that," the cop said. "Dressed alike."
The judge peered across at Marc with deep speculation. "I only see one of him," he said dryly.
"The other one disappeared," the cop said, casting down his eyes. "He—well, sort of evaporated."
"Evaporated? What are you talking about?"
"It's a fact, your honor. It happened on the way in. The only way I can explain it is that one minute he was there and the next he just sort of melted away."
"Rooney," the judge said, "have you lost your wits?"
"It wouldn't surprise me, judge," the cop sighed. "Everyone else has. Why not me?"
"There's only one man there, Rooney," the judge said harshly. "And judging by those skinny legs of his, maybe not even that."
"Yes, sir."
"Are you bucking for another vacation, Rooney, is that it?"
"Well, your honor, I do feel tired. It seemed to come over me all of a sudden, after I ran into all those people."
"All right, we'll see what can be done. In the meantime let's have no more of this falderol about one man being two, only one of them evaporated."
"Yes, your honor," Rooney said, greatly saddened. "There's only one man. I guess I was mistaken."
"Or drunk," the judge murmured sourly and turned his gaze to the assortment before him. "Now what happened with this gang?"
"They were all in a wreck that involved three cars. The young lady in the underskirt was driving the first one. She claims that the dark man with the scar tried to murder her by forcing her to drive a car with a broken steering gear."
"What does he say?"
"He says the young lady is mentally unstable and of low character. It seems that he and the congressman observed her in the car for some time before the crash. They say that her behavior was most erratic, that she wailed and shrieked and at one point tried to abandon the car in full motion."
"How else can you abandon a car?" the judge said sharply. "You have to be in full motion."
"I mean the car was in full motion."
"I see. Where was this gentleman and the congressman while they were doing all this observing?"
"They were in the second car. The congressman was driving. The dark man is his body-guard. He was cleaning his gun at the time and that's how he happened to shoot the third car, although the young lady insists he was trying to shoot her."
"I think I've lost the thread," the judge said foggily. "Who was in the third car?"
"The man with the skinny legs who says he isn't Pillsworth, and a blonde woman."
"He says he isn't Pillsworth and a blonde woman?" the judge asked, his eyes loosening in their sockets. "Why should he say a thing like that?"
"No, no," the cop said earnestly, "he just says he isn't Pillsworth."
"Then he admits to being a blonde woman?" the judge gasped. "He must be mad!"
"No," the cop said, "he doesn't admit anything about being a blonde woman."
"Then he denies being a blonde woman," the judge said with relief. "I wish you'd give me this story straight. Who accused him of being a blonde woman in the first place?"
"No one," the cop said, almost tearfully. "He was only accused of being Pillsworth."
"Pillsworth? You mean the fellow the hospital's looking for? Who said he was Pillsworth?"
A look of doom came into the cop's eyes. "The—the other one, your honor," he said.
"The other what?" the judge glowered. "Stop being evasive and answer my questions."
Rooney swallowed fatefully. "The other Pillsworth," he answered. "He accused Pillsworth of being Pillsworth—that is unless he's Pillsworth himself. Only he melted away so I guess we'll never really know. The blonde woman insists she can't identify him."
There was a dreadful silence as the judge tapped the palm of his hand with the gavel. He lifted his gaze to the ceiling then levelled it slowly on Rooney.
"So we're back to the blonde woman again, are we?"
"I'm afraid so," Rooney admitted weakly. "That's her over there, looking mad."
"I had hoped we were through with the blonde woman," the judge said acidly. "I thought we'd washed the blonde woman up."
"No, your honor, I'm afraid not."
"This isn't the same blonde woman that Pillsworth denies being, is it?"
"No, sir."
"Does she deny that she's Pillsworth, is that it?"
"No, sir," Rooney sighed hopelessly. "She's just a blonde woman. She refuses to give her name because her husband's a butcher."
"Is she a defendant or a complainant?"
"A complainant," the cop said. "She said that Pillsworth stole her car and pinched her. That is if he's Pillsworth, and he denies it."
"Don't you mean he pinched her car?"
"No, sir. He stole her car, but he pinched her—on the thigh."
"My word!" the judge said.
The cop nodded. "She wants to sue someone, only since there were two of them she doesn't know which one did the pinching. She can't be sure whether it was this Pillsworth or the other one—if you follow my meaning."
The judge paled. "Are you being deliberately cryptic, Rooney, or is it simply that you can't see your way clear to be clear, if I make myself clear."
"I'm afraid I don't follow you, your honor."
"Just a taste of your own medicine, Rooney," the judge said vengefully. "How do you like it?" He turned his gaze moodily on the blonde. "About this blonde...?"
"Yes, your honor?"
"She gets everything all snarled up. Every time she enters the picture it ceases to make sense. Do you suppose this would all clear up if I just had her thrown out of court?"
"I don't think so. With or without her, things are snarled up just the same. I've never seen so much snarling in all my life; these people just don't seem to like each other."
"What about this fellow who denies he's Pillsworth?" the judge asked. "Is he the only pure defendant in the bunch?"
"Oh, no, your honor. He's the biggest complainant of the lot. And he's far from pure. He's accusing the congressman of being the head of a gang of subversives who are planning to kill the entire population with bacteria."
The judge leaned across the bench, plainly scandalized. "The congressman!" he gasped. "Why Congressman Entwerp was a classmate of mine!"
"Yes, your honor. And he's threatened suit against this fellow for slander."
"Good," the judge said. "Have this Pillsworth or whoever he is brought before the bench. Obviously, he's a low criminal type. It sticks out all over him."
The cop nodded and turned in Marc's direction. "You," he said. "The judge will hear you."
Across the room, however, Marc gave no sign of hearing. Instead, he was gazing intently at the vacant chair next to his own. On his face was an expression of anxious annoyance.
"Now, look, George," he said, "You owe it to humanity to show yourself and help get this mess cleared up. Why not be a good loser for a change?"
The empty chair shifted, just perceptibly, with an air of complacency.
"Maybe they'll hang you," George replied hopefully from thin air.
"Don't be silly," Marc said. "There's no reason why they should. Come on, now, be a good fellow and help get this over with."
"Oh, I'm going to help get it over with," George said pleasantly. "When I'm through, they'll lower the boom on you so hard you'll be the first man in history to be buried in an envelope."
Just then Toffee leaned forward and touched Marc's arm. "The judge wants to speak to you," she said. "Come on, let's go."
Marc glanced around. "Did he call you too?"
"Well, no," Toffee admitted, "but I'm an interested party. I want to see that you get fair treatment."
"Couldn't you just stay out of it?" Marc pleaded. "Couldn't I just handle this myself?"
"Nonsense," Toffee said. "You need me. Come on, the old gaffer's beginning to look apoplectic again."
"Oh, all right," Marc sighed. Getting up he followed Toffee to a position before the bench. The judge glowered down at them critically.
"So glad you finally found you could come," he said.
"Thank you," Toffee beamed. "It's nice of you to have us."
The gavel barked irritably. There was silence until the judge's eyebrows ceased to twitch.
"What are you doing here?" the judge enquired with forced composure. "Who called you forward?"
"Lots of people have called me forward," Toffee said, "but that's just talk, judge. I'm just impulsive."
"Silence!" the judge said. "Good God, girl, no one asked you for any sordid confessions. I just want to know what you're doing here?"
Toffee nodded toward Marc. "I'm with him," she said.
"Then he's the man who was with you in the green sedan?"
"Oh, no." Toffee shook her head. "He's the other one."
The judge blanched. "The other one?" he asked apprehensively.
Toffee nodded. "They're exactly alike. Only this one is nicer. That's why I switched."
The judge raised his gavel warningly, and turned to Marc. "Are you twins, sir?"
Marc opened his mouth to speak, but before he could George's voice sounded immediately behind him.
"Do I look like twins, you thick-headed joker?" the voice asked. "And if you must drink in the morning, for Godsake lay off the cheap stuff so you don't see double. I always heard justice was blind but I didn't know it was blind drunk."
There was an ominous silence in the court as the judge raked Marc with a glance of pure loathing. "Are you deliberately in contempt of court?" he asked.