He tried hard to find some clue to the cause of his extraordinary eye affliction, but arrived at nothing definite. There was a rustling at his side and he turned to find that the blonde had rejoined him. He closed his eyes again as the net brassiere, for a second time, began to appear from beneath the fading fabric of her dress.
"Here are the glasses," the blonde said coldly. "I put tape on the inside of the lenses." Marc held out his hand and she gave them to him. "Your eyes certainly must be sensitive."
"You'll never know," Marc said gloomily and slipped the glasses on.
"Can you see anything at all?" the blonde asked inquisitively.
"Not a thing," Marc said. "It's a great relief."
"Mister," the blonde said flatly, "I guess I just don't understand you."
There was the sound of stealthy approach from the direction of the aisle, and Marc quickly lowered the glasses to observe Toffee approaching on tip-toe. She was carrying a bottle of champagne under each arm and she looked enormously pleased.
"I think they've gone," she said. Then, seeing the blonde, suspicion flickered in her eyes. "Leave it to you; all I have to do is turn my back and you're snuggled up with some big blonde."
"I'm not snuggled up," Marc said. "I've been making a purchase."
"Of what?" Toffee said sharply.
"These glasses," Marc said. "The young lady was good enough to fix them so you can't see through them."
"Just glasses," the blonde murmured regretfully. "And that's all." She made a small sound of disillusionment. "And I thought this was going to be my lucky day, too."
"It is," Toffee said. "If anything had passed between you two besides a pair of glasses, you'd be wearing your neck off the shoulder this season."
"Where did you get the champagne?" Marc broke in. "Or is that a subject too delicate to discuss?"
"Almost," Toffee said grandly. "I ran into a salesman in Imported Liquors with foreign ideas. We indulged in a bit of hand-wrestling amongst the East Indian wines, and he lost. He's resting quietly now, however." She held out one of the bottles of champagne. "I used this to defend myself." She shoved the bottle into Marc's hand. "Let's get slightly damp."
Meanwhile the blonde had begun to edge away.
"Leaving?" Marc asked pleasantly.
"I'm going over to Imported Liquors," the blonde said.
She departed, and Marc extracted the cork from the bottle with a fruity pop and handed it back to Toffee.
"A pause for refreshment," he said, "and then we've got to do something about my eyesight. Did you say the cops have gone?"
"The last I saw of them," Toffee said, "they were lumpering through ladies' lingerie, headed for silverware and china." She paused for a deep drink from the bottle. "With the head of steam they had worked up they should be far beyond the horizon by now."
"Good," Marc said. He received the bottle from Toffee and drank thirstily. "Cops have a positive talent for being disagreeable."
"A bad lot," Toffee nodded. "They tend to weigh on the spirit. And speaking of spirits don't keep sucking at that bottle all day. Save some for me."
Twenty minutes later, one bottle depleted, the other tucked protectively beneath Toffee's arm, the two emerged unsteadily from behind the counter and started on an uneven course down the aisle.
"You'll have to lead me," Marc said thickly. "I can't see a thing."
Toffee took his hand. "Blind as a drunken bat," she giggled.
"You will probably lead me astray," Marc said happily.
"I shall do my best," Toffee said. "Luckily, I'm familiar with the route."
Marc held back for a moment. "I've just figured it out," he said. "It was that burp medicine that affected my eyes. We've got to go look up that druggist."
"All right," Toffee said. "But if I had X-ray eyes I would be content to stand on street corners and whistle."
This concluded, they tottered on to the end of the aisle and down the stairs.
"Going astray!" Marc sang vaporishly. "Going astray! I'm jus' going astray!"
With a wild lurch the two fugitives precariously left the stairs and emerged onto the first floor. As they started unsteadily down the aisle a veiled and voluminous lady in black turned from her examination of a silk blouse and observed their progress with smiling approval. She turned benignly to the sales girl who was serving her.
"Isn't that sweet?" she murmured. "Imagine a stunning girl like that sacrificing a day to take her poor old blind father shopping."
Toffee and Marc proceeded in a more or less orderly fashion to the doorway, leaving the good Sergeant to ransack a store now empty of its quarry.
Five minutes later and three blocks removed from the department store, the two law-evaders paused to reconnoitre. Or at least Toffee reconnoitred while Marc, still sightless behind his glasses, awaited directions. He held out his hand in readiness, waiting to be led. At his side, Toffee momentarily broke her mood of concentration.
"As I see it," she said, "our next move is to flee the city."
"But what about the druggist?" Marc said. "I've got to find out about my eyes." He stopped as he became aware of a nervous tugging at his sleeve.
"Hey, man," a voice said, "I've been lookin' for you everywheres."
Marc hastily lowered his glasses. He glanced down to find a familiar shifty-eyed, weasel-like face peering up at him.
"You!" he said.
"Yeah, man," the diminutive peddler of lewd pictures grinned. "You still got the cool stuff, huh?"
"The cool stuff?" Marc said with sudden stiffness. "If you mean that collection of disgusting pictures, no I haven't got them. At the moment, I believe they're listed as Exhibit A in the case of The People against Marcus G. Pillsworth."
"Man!" the little man wailed. "You mean somebody goofed and the cops got 'em?"
"Precisely," Marc said frigidly.
"Who's this Pillsworth cube?"
Marc drew himself up into a living tower of glowering hauteur. "I am Marcus G. Pillsworth," he said nastily.
"You!" the little man said. "You got hooked with the goods?"
"I got hooked," Marc said flatly, "with the goods just where you planted it on me."
"Jeez!" the little man cried despairingly. "You just can't rely on nobody no more." He chewed his lip for a moment, then looked up at Marc anxiously. "What about the French Elixir? Did the bulls heist that, too?"
"French Elixir?" Marc said. "I don't know anything about your French Elixir."
"The hell you don't, man," the little man said. "I faded it into your coat pocket. Did they find it?"
Marc paused. A chill of apprehension skittered up his spine. "Into my coat pocket," he said. "A small brown bottle?"
"It wasn't a big blue jug," the little man said impatiently. "You still got it?"
Marc reached into his pocket and pulled out, first one brown bottle, then another. They were almost identical except that the liquid in the one marked 'French Elixir' had been depleted by approximately one fourth.
"Good night!" Marc yelled. "I drank the wrong stuff!"
"You drank the Elixir!" the little man said. He snatched the bottle from Marc's hand. "Youdrankit?"
"I said I drank it," Marc said distractedly.
"Then, you owe me twenty bucks, man. That bottle of genuine, hard-to-get French Elixir sells for fifty, sixty dollars." He held out his hand. "Pad my palm, friend."
"I certainly will not pad your palm," Marc said indignantly. "Do you know what that stuff's done to me?"
"Huh?" The little man paused reflectively. "How should I know what it done," he said. "They say all sorts of stuff could happen to you, according to how you're repressed." He regarded Marc interestedly. "What happened?"
"I've got X-ray eyes!" Marc said dramatically. "That's what happened."
The little man looked at him skeptically. "What's X-ray eyes?"
"When I look at people," Marc said, "I see right through their clothes. If I didn't have these glasses on everyone on this street would be stark naked."
The little man made a thin whistling sound, then began to chuckle. "Lord, man," he laughed, "you ain't got X-ray eyes, you just got a dirty mind!"
"What!" Marc said.
"That's all!" the little man said. "It was all explained to me. The stuff works different on different people. It lets out what you've been pluggin' up inside. Oh, man," he chortled, "and you gave me the freeze for showin' you those French postcards!"
"I do not have a dirty mind," Marc said, "and even if I did, it would hardly be any business of yours. The point is that this awful elixir of yours has made a mess of things."
"At least," Toffee put in, "it's given us a devil of a handicap."
The little man looked at Toffee directly for the first time and obviously was struck by what he saw. "Who's the cool chunk of stuff?" he asked. He moved in close to Toffee and put a hand casually on her shoulder. "Just call me Hotstuff Harold, honey," he murmured. "That's how I'm referred to by all my intimate friends."
"If you don't keep your grimy little paws to yourself," Toffee said evenly, "they'll soon be referring to you as 'the deceased.'"
"It's nice that you two are acquainted," Marc said sourly, "but that still doesn't solve my problem." Peering over the top of his glasses, he fixed Hotstuff Harold with a beady eye. "How do I get rid of the effects of this awful elixir of yours?"
"As far as I know," Hotstuff said, "all you can do is wait for it to wear off."
"And how long will that take?"
"Who knows?" Hotstuff shrugged. "I ain't never messed with the stuff. Maybe I been repressin' a better nature and it would come out and ruin my life's work."
"I doubt it," Marc said. "But there must be something I can do about this."
"If I was you, man, I'd go sit in a Marilyn Monroe picture until they kicked me out." Hotstuff put his hand to Marc's sleeve. "You still owe me some bucks, boy. Twenty for the pictures and twenty more for the shot of elixir."
"Now, look here," Marc said sternly, "if you think...."
He stopped, for Hotstuff, a businessman of some agility, already had Marc's wallet in his hand and was counting out the money. Marc snatched it back from him.
"Here, now!" he said.
Harold grinned modestly. "Mother taught me how to take up public collections while I was still in rompers. They say I was the cutest little dip that ever worked the Stem."
"Well, this is one stem you're not clipping," Marc said hotly. "Keep your hands to yourself."
"I ain't goin' to leave till I get paid," Hotstuff said without animosity.
"Just a minute." Toffee broke in. "While you two are arguing, time is running down the drain. If we're going to the country we'd better get started."
Marc turned to her with a sigh. "I thought I explained to you that...."
"But I've got it all figured out," Toffee said complacently. "While you've been wasting your time with this grifter, I've been working out a plan."
"I'm sorry," Marc said wearily, "but I don't think I could stand another one of your plans. Not today."
"But this will work," Toffee said brightly. "Now the problem, to put it succinctly, is for me to go to the country, but not to be noticed by Julie. Well, actually, that's the easiest thing in the world."
"Oh?" Marc said. "If you imagine that Julie is likely to overlook a half-naked redhead...."
"Now, look at it this way," Toffee interrupted, "if you wanted to hide yourself where would be the best place?"
"Me," Hotstuff interjected, "I always go out and mix with the crowds when I'm on the dodge."
"Exactly!" Toffee said. She looked on Hotstuff with new respect, then, glancing back to Marc, pointed across the street. "See that bus?"
Tilting his glasses, Marc followed the direction of her pointing finger. Diagonally across the street was parked a large yellow sight-seeing bus of a vintage so distant as to defy memory. At the front of the bus stood a tall, cadaverous looking individual in shirt sleeves, about whom was an atmosphere of listless resignation. Inside the bus, the seats were starkly uninhabited.
"What we do," Toffee went on enthusiastically, "is hire that bus and fill it up with a lot of people. Then we drive out to the country, and when Julie sees this great gang knocking about the place she'll never pay any special attention to anyone in particular. She'll never notice me."
"That's ridiculous," Marc said. "In the first place I doubt I'd ever be able to hire the bus privately."
"From the looks of business," Hotstuff said, "you could probably have it for a song."
"Even so," Marc said doggedly, "we are not a crowd. We are only two people, and I'm positive Julie is quite capable of picking a strange young lady out of a group of two."
"I'd be very happy to accompany you," Hotstuff said. "In fact I insist on it, so's I can protect my investment."
"There!" Toffee said. "We're forming a crowd already. All we need are about twenty more."
"And where are we going to get them?" Marc asked serenely.
"I could have a number of my business acquaintances and their—uh—molls—out here on the corner in a flash," Hotstuff offered obligingly. "I know a number of personalities who are quite hot to get out of town for various reasons."
"Go get them!" Toffee said. "We'll hire the bus while you're gone."
"Now, just a second...." Marc yelled, but Hotstuff had already scurried off down the street toward the corner poolhall.
The deal for the bus was concluded in almost the same instant that Marc approached the gangling individual on the sidewalk.
"Sure, mister," the man said sadly. "Why not? A day in the country would suit me fine. You can have the bus and me for whatever you want to offer, and you can bring along all the friends you want."
Marc fatefully handed over a couple of bills and glanced, not without apprehension, down the street. "The others should be along any moment now," he said. He turned to Toffee. "Just how are we going to explain all these people to Julie. We can't just say I asked them out for dinner."
"Well, then," Toffee said, "we'll just say you're a group of botany students on a field trip." As though that satisfactorily explained everything she started into the bus. "Heigh, ho! Oh, for a day of biology in the open air!"
"I thought you said botany," Marc said, uneasily.
"One can always hope," she said grandly.
True to his word, Hotstuff was back almost instantly, trailing after him a cast of characters the likes of which is rarely seen on the streets before sundown. The men, five of them in all, were heavy-browed and flashily dressed. Their female counterparts—or molls, as Hotstuff had described them—were so unanimous in their endorsement of low necklines, high heels, dyed hair and ankle bracelets that they seemed almost to be in uniform.
At the approach of this strange swarming, Marc lowered his glasses only to replace them even a bit more quickly than was entirely necessary.
"Good Lord!" he groaned. "It looks like Saturday night at the police lineup."
At that moment, however, Hotstuff arrived at the front of the bus, his questionable companions crowding close behind him.
"These is some of my best chums," he announced with beaming pride. "I would introduce you to them only they don't like their names mentioned." He drew forward a crimson-lipped creature who had crossed the street close to his side.
"This is Floss, my mouse," he said.
Floss, whose hair ran the gamut of colors from jet at the roots to orange-red at the ends—with blond, brown and platinum intervening—gazed at Marc from beneath mascara-encrusted eyelashes.
"Hi, tallstuff," she said in a smoky tone, "ain't I seen you somewheres before?"
"Knock it off, Floss," Hotstuff said. "Today's vacation. Besides, the gent can't see you through those glasses, so don't waste your wattage." He grinned at Marc. "She likes you, man."
"I always like to improve public relations," Floss said delicately.
"I'm much obliged," Marc said, edging away. "Well, I suppose we ought to be on our way."
"Okay, everybody!" Hotstuff yelled. "Climb aboard! We're off to mingle with nature!" He took Marc's arm and guided him to the steps. "Everybody brought a couple of bottles," he said. "All you have to do is supply the grub. Boy! is this going to be some party!"
"Yes," Marc said fatefully, "it probably is."
It was not until the bus left the city and was churning its way into the fresh-budding atmosphere of the country that the little assemblage began to get into the true spirit of the trip.
Until then they had been content to sit quietly drinking from their bottles, but now, with the green fields and trees unfolding before them they were moved to song. Lifting their voices in shattering discord, they howled out a little number about an unfortunate heroine called Underslung Fannie whose amorous exploits, according to the lyrics, were distressingly uncanny. At the rear of the bus, Marc slunk in his seat and turned to Toffee.
"Leave it to you," he moaned. "How am I ever going to palm off this tight little segment of the underworld as a bunch of fun-loving botanists?"
"Oh, they're not so bad," Toffee said. "At least you don't have to worry about whether they're bad or not. You know they're bad right from the beginning."
"And so are you," Marc said dryly. "However, I suppose everyone seeks his own level. I might have expected this."
Toffee generously patted his cheek. "You're just overwrought," she said. "You need a drink." Reaching under her seat, she brought out the bottle of champagne. "Take some of this and you will see everything in a happy glow."
"Behind these glasses?" Marc asked.
"You may even find the nerve to take them off," Toffee said.
"In this crowd?" Marc said. "Heaven forbid!"
Nevertheless, after several lengthy drafts from the bottle, Marc did begin to see things more brightly, and he did remove his glasses. It gave the congregation before him a strange, bare-shouldered look, but the effect, since everyone was seated, was hardly shocking. He was careful, however, to keep his gaze averted from the passing landscape, particularly after a startling view of a pink-skinned, full-formed farmgirl scattering feed to a flock of hideously defeathered chickens. After a time he began to look on his new-found companions a bit more fondly.
"At least," he yawned, mellowed by the champagne and the warm sun, "they're a happy bunch of criminals."
As though to prove his words correct, the company suddenly roared with laughter, and Marc, content that things were going well, put his head back against the seat and dozed off.
The burst of laughter, however, had Marc listened more closely to it, was more a cause for alarm than complacency. In its gleeful, boisterous tones was the announcement that the drunken little band of miscreants had found still a new outlet for their antisocial tendencies.
A blowsy blonde named Dora, spotting a cop lounging against his motorcycle along the highway, had observed the prescribed amenities between the law and the underworld by leaning out the window and making a series of rude and meaningful gestures. Admiring Dora's finesse in this affair, her escort, a blue-jawed second-story artist named Moose, leaned out beside her and dispatched a depleted whiskey bottle at the cop's head, scoring a solid hit along side the ear. Their friends and companions, as a result, had fairly collapsed in their seats with helpless laughter.
In this sordid incident were the beginnings of a well-routined game. The criminals, seeing no end of fun in this little sport, organized themselves into a team so that it might be pursued with the greatest efficiency and dispatch. Splitting themselves into cop-watchers, cop-insulters and cop-smackers, they became a yelling, yowling menace to every patrolman and peace-enforcer along the highway. As Marc continued to slumber, a chorus of sirens began to wail and shriek in the wake of the lumbering bus. Of those involved in this not-so-innocent diversion, only the bus driver was distressed.
"Now, cut it out, you!" he yelled back at his cop-assaulting passengers. "Lay off before you get me into serious trouble!"
"Step on the gas, you hacky!" Moose roared. "Give it the gun!" And having delivered this command, he snatched up another bottle and sent it sizzling through the window toward the head of an unsuspecting sheriff's deputy.
"Got him!" Floss shrieked with childish glee and collapsed to the aisle in a fit of giggles.
The sirens following the bus had reached a many-throated scream before Marc finally awoke. Opening his eyes with a start, he gazed about, firmly convinced that the world had gone mad. A glance toward the front of the bus and another out the rear, however, swiftly told him the frightful truth of the matter.
"Stop that!" he yelled. "Stop it this instant!"
"Look, mister!" the bus driver hollered. "Either you quiet down those maniacs or I'm going to drive this bus right off a cliff somewhere!"
Marc looked ahead down the highway. Mercifully, deliverance, of a sort, was at hand.
"Just around the next bend!" he yelled. "Take the drive to the left!"
"Golly!" Toffee cried happily, "isn't this exciting!"
Marc cast her a brief, scathing glance and concentrated on the road ahead. The bus, traveling at maximum speed, was rattling and creaking in every joint. Tires squealing, the driver took the turn ahead, then cut sharply to the left and through the gateway that bore the sign, 'Pillsworth Acres.'
The bus careened up the circle of the drive, spitting gravel and dirt from beneath its tires. A rambling, stone-faced house loomed rapidly ahead. Green, tree-studded lawns stretched away on all sides. Down the rise to the west a swimming pool flashed by, studding the greenness like a glimmering, intermittent sapphire. With a scream of the brakes, the bus ground to a terrifying stop at the entrance to the house. In the distance, back on the highway, the avenging sirens grew louder, then faded swiftly away into the distance. The driver at the front of the bus went limp in his seat.
"All out!" he gritted. "Get the hell out of here before I go nuts!"
Marc whirled about to Toffee. "Why didn't you wake me up?" he demanded.
"What for?" Toffee asked blithely. "You'd only have worried. And everything turned out fine, didn't it?"
As the company of undesirables staggered, reeled and toppled from the bus onto the lawn, Marc and Toffee followed after. Marc refitted his glasses to his nose and paused before the driver's extended hand.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Look, buddy," the driver said, "where can I hide this hack? Those cops may be comin' back here any minute."
"Seems a shame to hide it," Marc said acidly, "when we've spent so many happy hours together in it."
"I gotta hide it, mister," the driver said. "I don't want to get into any trouble. You see, this ain't my bus."
"What?" Marc said.
The driver shook his head woefully. "I was just standing there when you came along and offered to hire it. The guy who owns it was in a java joint down the street. I just got fired off my job this morning, and when you came along and made me that offer, well, it was such a beautiful day and all...."
"You, too!" Marc said, aghast. "Isn't anybody legitimate today?"
"I still think I ought to hide this can."
"Hide it by all means!" Marc agreed. "Remove all trace of it." He motioned toward the woods. "Drive it out there, where it will never be seen again."
Hotstuff, who had overheard this exchange, moved in confidentially. "Me and my pals are experts at obscurin' the evidence," he offered. "We could convert it into an icebox, so's they'd never know the difference."
The driver shook his head. "I think the woods are better," he said. He sighed. "Besides, I want to be off by myself for a while, where I can take a nap."
Toffee held out the bottle of champagne which was still half full. "Take this with you," she said. "You need it."
"I sure do, lady," the driver said gratefully, accepting the bottle. "I need every drop of it. I'm going to get so drunk I won't even know who I am."
At this point Mr. Busby, Marc's paunchy, genteel caretaker, tottered curiously down the steps and approached the bus with evident caution.
"'Afternoon, Mr. Pillsworth," he said uncertainly. "I see you brought along some—uh—guests."
"Why, yes, Busby," Marc said, with an attempt at nonchalance. "I brought them up for a little outing. A group of business associates and their wives."
At this description, Floss straightened her skirt and put a hand to her hair. Hotstuff removed his hand gracefully from a companion's pocket and smiled ingratiatingly.
"I see," Busby said quietly, but in his pale eyes there was an enormous doubt.
"Where is Mrs. Pillsworth?" Marc asked casually. "And Mario?"
"I'm not just certain," Busby said. "They took their paints and a lunch hamper and went off into the woods." He pointed to the south. "They were headed out that way."
"I think I'll hunt them out and have a word with them," Marc said.
"And your—uh—associates?"
"Oh, yes," Marc said. He leaned a bit closer to Busby. "What do you think would amuse them, Busby?"
"I don't suppose I should say it, sir," Busby said, "but I think I ought to slip inside and put the silver and Mrs. Pillsworth's jewels in the vault. As for amusing them, we haven't any dope or revolvers on the premises, but, then, perhaps they've brought their own."
"I shouldn't be surprised," Marc said.
"And while I'm about it, sir," Busby went on, "I think I'd better put the lock on the wine cellar."
"Wine cellar!"
It was Hotstuff, the ever-present eavesdropper, who spoke up. "Hey, gang, there's a wine cellar!" he announced. "Cool, huh?"
"Say," Floss drawled, sidling up to Marc, "you've really got class, huh? A wine cellar is right up my alley. The lower I get the better I like it."
Toffee stepped forward, eyes glittering. "You may get lower than you care to, doll, if you keep on like that. You may find yourself six feet under with a very dim out-look."
"Listen, sister," Floss said belligerently, "I'll tangle with you any time."
"You may never get untangled if you do," Toffee flared. "You may wind up wearing that fright wig of yours on your bustle!"
"I'll risk it, carrot-top!"
"There's no risk involved," Toffee said, doubling her fists. "I'll make you a money-back guarantee!"
"Well, well," Hotstuff said approvingly, "the girls are getting real well acquainted, ain't they?"
"Too well," Marc said. "We'd better separate them before they get downright intimate." He turned to Busby. "Show the guests to the wine cellar."
"But, sir...."
"I know, Busby," Marc said, "but they'll probably be quiet there—at least for a while."
"I suppose so, sir," Busby said dully. He started back toward the house, and the raucous little band fell in behind him. As they departed, Toffee stared after Floss malevolently.
"I may belt that kid one yet," she murmured.
Behind them, the bus started up, lurched crazily forward, shot through the hedge bordering the drive and took off drunkenly across the lawn and into the trees.
"Oh well," Marc sighed. "I suppose it might be worse—though I can't imagine how."
"Devastation seems to be prevalent today," Toffee agreed.
"And with you helping it along," Marc said, "I seem to have gotten a double order." Lifting his glasses briefly, he stared off toward the woods. "I suppose I'd better get going. The sooner I settle things the better."
"If you want my advice," Toffee said, "take a gun."
"What in the world would I do with a gun?" Marc asked.
"It would give weight to your argument," Toffee said. "These Latin lovers expect jealous husbands to carry guns."
"I am not jealous," Marc said stiffly, "I'm just worried, that's all."
"In that case," Toffee said, "why don't we just wait here until they get back? We could join the party in the cellar."
"It's this spring-time daffiness that really upsets me," Marc said. "Everyone seems out of control."
"Look," Toffee said, "if they went to the woods in that direction, why don't we go to them in the other direction and let Julie do the worrying for a change. Fair's fair, isn't it?"
"How could that possibly worry Julie," Marc asked. "She wouldn't even know we were there."
"That's right," Toffee said evilly, "she wouldn't, would she?"
"Unprincipled little trollop," Marc said.
"Unprincipled to the bone," Toffee agreed. She sighed. "But what good does it do me?"
"I suppose I should drop in on my guests before I leave," Marc said, "just to make sure they're comfortable."
"They're probably so comfortable by now, they're unconscious."
"They're better that way," Marc said.
This settled, he turned away, then turned quickly back again as Busby, wringing his hands with desperation, suddenly flew through the door and down the steps.
"Sir! Sir!" he yelled. "They've done it already, sir! I can't imagine.... They must be quick as cats!"
"What are you talking about, Busby?" Marc asked.
"The silver, sir!" Busby wailed. "And Mrs. Pillsworth's jewels! Your—associates cleaned out the lot! And they merely passed through the house, sir!"
"Like corn through a goose," Toffee murmured.
"Oh, Mrs. Pillsworth will be furious, sir!" Busby lamented. "Mrs. Pillsworth puts great store by her silver and jewels!"
Marc shuddered with apprehension. Julie would be more than furious; she would be livid. And, worse than that, she would be livid at him! Since the pack of thieves who had taken the things were his guests, the whole thing, therefore, would be all his fault. She would never forgive him.
"We'll have to get them back!" he said.
"I could call the police, sir!"
"No!" Marc fairly yelled. "No, Busby, don't call the police." He frowned concernedly. "Are they all down in the cellar now?"
"Revelling," Busby said hauntedly. "Revelling and shouting and guzzling. I don't think I'd go down there if I were you. It's a regular den of vice."
"Nevertheless," Marc said, "they need a good talking to. It's hardly good manners to accept a man's hospitality and steal his wife's jewels."
"It was probably Floss," Toffee said vengefully. "She's got her eye out for a good thing, all right."
Together, the three of them entered the house, crossed the wide, cool hall at the front, passed through the solarium and kitchen and drew up at the doorway that led down to the cellar. The sound of coarse laughter momentarily halted their steps. From inside his jacket, Busby extracted a revolver.
"Perhaps you should have this, sir," he said. "I keep it for emergencies."
"And this is certainly an emergency," Marc said. Taking the gun, he faced the stairway. "I will speak to them firmly and if that doesn't work, I'll—I'll—"
"Call the police, sir?"
"No! No, I'll—I'll hope for the best."
"With that mob," Busby said dismally, "the best is bound to be something worse than the worst, if you get my meaning."
"Nevertheless," Marc said, "we will have to face them with it." He led the way through the door and down the steps into the dim, musty sweetness of the cellar. As they descended, a second roar of laughter rose to greet them.
"Hey!" a voice called roughly out of the shadows. "Mine host approaches—with vassals?"
"Vassals of what?" another voice inquired woozily. "Or do you mean sea-going vassals?"
Marc peered into the dimness and held up a hand. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, not without a note of irony. "Ladies and gentlemen, Busby, here, has just told me a most shocking story."
There was a stirring in the dark. "Old Busby did that?" a voice said interestedly. "He hardly looks like he'd know any shockin' stories."
"Shame on Busby!" a feminine voice giggled out of the distance.
A form moved out of the shadows and proved to be Floss. "Let's hear this shockin' story," she said eagerly. "Ain't nothin' like a good shockin' story to get the party goin'."
Marc put up his hand again. "No," he said, "you don't understand; it's not that kind of a shocking story."
"A true confession, huh?" a voice said sullenly from behind the wine bins. "Don't sign it, Busby. Get a good shyster before you put your name to it."
"Please!" Marc said. "Let me tell you...."
"Not if it makes us accessories to the fact!" the voice came back. "I don't want to hear it. I'm putting my fingers in my ears!"
"Let's all put our fingers in our ears!" a blonde-sounding voice tittered. "It tickles!"
"Now, just a minute!" Marc yelled. "Listen! Someone here has stolen the silver and my wife's jewels, and I've got to have them back. The only thing I can do is appeal to you as a friend."
"You'd appeal to me even as an enemy," Floss giggled tipsily. "Advance, friend and be recognized."
"If he does," Toffee snarled, "he'll also be cauterized. Stay back, you two-bit lollypop!"
But Marc was not to be distracted from the matter at hand. "Now, which one of you did it?" he asked. "There won't be any arrest if you will just return the things."
There was a dense silence. Hotstuff shuffled out of the dimness and took up his place unsteadily at Marc's side.
"Okay, you crazy cats!" he hollered. "Which one of you pinched Mrs. Pillsworth's rocks?"
"Was she wearin' them at the time?" a female voice inquired.
"No, she wasn't," Marc said. "What has that got to do with it?"
"Plenty," the voice said. "If she was wearin' them there might have been a hell of a lot more pinched than just her jewelry." The speaker sighed with understanding. "Sometimes a girl likes to be pinched just for herself alone."
"You're gonna get slugged just for yourself alone if you don't shut up," Hotstuff snapped. He paused significantly. "Ain't no one gonna sing?" He turned back to Marc. "Was the stuff insured?"
"Yes," Marc said, "but it's not as simple as that." Resignedly, he launched into the story of his domestic problems. "So, you see," he concluded imploringly, "I have to have the original jewels back or I might lose my wife."
"And she's out two-timin' you with this Mario creep?" a voice said indignantly. "Disgustin'!"
"You gotta take your rod and blast the guy," another voice said hotly. "Defendin' your home, you could get off scot free."
"Hey!" Hotstuff broke in suddenly, "I got a great idea!" He grinned at his unseen audience with triumph. "Here we are, enjoyin' a healthful, restful day in the country, all at Mr. Pillsworth's expense. Well, now, don't it seem like we owe him some kind of token of thanks?"
"Yeah!" Floss said happily. "Like an ash tray made like a toilet seat!"
"Naw, Floss, nothin' like that," Hotstuff frowned. "What I mean is something real useful that he needs."
"Yeah?" a voice asked eagerly. "Like what?"
"Well, now I was thinkin'," Hotstuff said, "what Pillsworth, here, needs most is to have this Mario removed outa the way. Naturally, he can't go knock the guy off himself; he just ain't the type. So, what I got the idea for, is why don't we do the job for him? Kind of like a thank-you present because we're havin' such a nice time!"
"Hey!" a voice growled enthusiastically, "that's a solid idea. It's got a lot of sentiment, too. Like one good turn deserves another."
There was a general murmur of assent.
"After all," the blond-sounding voice said soddenly, "what are friends for, except to go around and help out one another?" There was the sound of loud snuffling. "It kind of gets you when you stop and think about it. Who's got a rod that ain't hot?"
"Now, wait a minute!" Marc yelled. "You can't do that! It's murder!"
"But we gotta make up for the jewels, don't we?" Hotstuff said. "We gotta be honest with you, don't we?"
Already, the murderous drunks had begun to swarm out of the dimness. The blue-jawed Moose appeared brandishing a wicked looking .38.
"We'll all take shots at him," he chuckled, "and say it was a huntin' accident. That way, they won't be able to pin it on no one in particular."
"Now, listen!" Marc rasped desperately. "I can't permit you to do this!"
"Oh, it's really nothin'," Hotstuff said modestly. He motioned to his followers. "Come on, friends, to the woods!"
"You mustn't do this!" Marc cried.
"What a guy!" Moose growled admiringly. "You gotta practically fight him to even do him a little favor."
The band swarmed past Marc and up the steps. "We'll spread out and force him into the open!" Hotstuff yelled.
"Stop!" Marc hollered. "Don't do it! I don't want you to!"
But the last of the assassins reached the top of the steps and disappeared out the door. Marc turned hopelessly to Toffee.
"I should have stayed in jail!" he said. "I can just see the newspapers when all this is over. Julie will divorce me for certain!"
"Well, don't just stand there wringing your hands," Toffee said. "Let's go out and warn them. We'll have to hide this Mario character until they've cooled down and gone away."
"I suppose so," Marc said. He turned and, with Toffee's guidance, started up the steps. "At least we know where to look. Maybe we can beat them to it."
They hurried up the stairs and out the back door. Marc turned briefly back to Busby.
"You stay here," he said. "If Mrs. Pillsworth and Mario return warn them to stay out of sight."
"Yes, sir," Busby said. "And I think I'll stay out of sight myself."
Marc and Toffee started out.
"They're probably down along the stream somewhere," Marc said. "Let's hurry."
It was when they had reached the end of the lawns and were starting into the brush that Marc stumbled and lost his glasses. After looking about them then, hurriedly, he gave them up.
"I'll just have to do without them," he said.
"This is hardly the time to indulge your Puritan sensitivities," Toffee agreed. "Come on!"
They forged ahead over rocks and through bushes until they came to the edge of the stream. There they stopped, scanning the banks for as far as they could see, but there was no one.
"You go in that direction," Toffee said quickly, "And I'll go upstream. If I find them I'll whistle."
Marc nodded agreement and struck out, shoving his way through a thick tangle of foliage. He moved along carefully toward a clearing that he remembered to be ahead. Finally, starting through the last leafy barrier, he caught his coat on a branch. He turned back to loosen it, at the same time backing out into the opening, pulling against the hold of the branch. The gun in his hand, however, made the maneuver awkward. As the coat finally came loose, he fell backwards, landing on the grass.
He was just starting to boost himself up, when he heard the scream behind him. It was a shrill scream and filled with horror. There was an ensuing moment of silence, then the sound of swiftly padding feet, scurrying in all directions. Marc turned and looked.
At first glance he was deeply startled, having forgotten momentarily the condition of his eyes. A large collection of humanity, glistening pinkly in the afternoon sunlight, were disappearing frenziedly into the surrounding greenery. As their unclad backsides vanished behind cover, Marc noticed that they had left behind them a number of picnic baskets, thermos jugs and blankets.
He sat for a moment, getting back his breath, then, on brief reflection, it came to him that these picnickers, whoever they were, had behaved with singular strangeness. Why should they run so desperately for cover just because he had fallen into the clearing?
He had only begun to ponder this curious equation when he realized that perhaps his falling there really had nothing to do with it at all. Perhaps something else, something much more formidable than a mere intruder, had panicked them. Visions of man-consuming cobras and slavering tigers flashed through his mind. Whatever it was that had so upset these people, he wasn't going to hang around to welcome it single-handedly. Leaping to his feet, he also ran for cover.
He crashed through the scratchy frontier of brush and came to an abrupt stop. Crouching before him, her back fortunately turned, was a plumpish, dark-haired woman, hiding her face in her hands. Marc crouched quickly down beside her and for a moment there was a tense silence. It was as though they waited for a bomb to drop. As the moments passed, however, and nothing occurred, Marc cleared his throat. The woman flinched nervously.
"Shh!" she hissed. "Be quiet!"
"What for?" Marc asked. "What happened?"
"Didn't you see?" the woman asked.
"I must have missed it," Marc said.
"Well, just be quiet," the woman said again, and once more the silence returned.
Finally, out of sheer curiosity, Marc was forced to reopen the conversation.
"This seems to be my day for crouching down with women," he said, trying a social tone.
"Is it?" the woman said. "I suppose there's a reason why?"
"I don't know," Marc said, feeling that this exchange was not destined to make a great deal of sense. "But I'm beginning to be just a little stiff from it."
"From what?" the woman asked absently.
"From crouching down with women," Marc said, wishing he hadn't started the discussion in the first place.
"Do you mean you get stiffer from crouching down with women than with men?" the woman asked.
"Well, I don't know about that," Marc said. "I've never crouched down with any men. Do you suppose it would matter if I stood up and stretched a bit?"
"For heaven's sake!" the woman gasped. "Do you want to be seen?"
"Why shouldn't I be seen?" Marc asked.
"You know very well," the woman said, "the way you are."
"The way I am?"
"Certainly," the woman said. "You know how people get about that sort of thing."
"Oh?" Marc said, completely lost. "Say, how am I, anyway?"
"How should I know how you are?" the woman said primly. "I don't allow myself to think about those things."
"But you were just talking about it," Marc said, "and about how people get about it."
"Your mind should be above it all," the woman said. "If you're asking for compliments, you've come to the wrong party."
"I persistently get the feeling," Marc said, "that we're talking about two different things."
"Weren't you at the last meeting when the citizen's committee showed up and started chasing us around?"
"Why no," Marc said interestedly, "I guess I missed that one."
"The way people act," the woman said peevishly, "you'd think we nudists aren't decent or something."
"Nudists!" Marc yelped. "Then, you really haven't any clothes on after all!"
"Of course I haven't," the woman said self-righteously. "And you...." Suddenly a quiver of realization coursed through her plump body and, removing her hands from her eyes, she looked around at Marc with a glance of horror. Her lips parted and she screamed.
"You're dressed!" she cried. "You're the man with the gun! Get away from me. Don't come near me!"
"I wouldn't think of it!" Marc said, leaping to his feet. "Good heavens, don't turn around!"
"Don't worry," the woman said fervently, "I don't think I could even if I wanted to! I'm just going to sit here and yell." And just to prove it, apparently, she screamed again. "He's here!" she shrieked. "He's here, with all his clothes on!" Her tone implied a nasty accusation.
"Good grief!" Marc said. "You don't have to tell everybody, do you?"
Now that the alarm was out, the landscape came madly to life. Nudes of all sizes and descriptions, clutching bits of greenery to themselves where it was most needed, began leaping about through the brush like fish in a net.
Swiftly it developed into a full-blown stampede. Marc goggled with disbelief as tanned figures rushed across the clearing and flashed out of sight along the banks of the stream.
"Well, I'll be darned!" Marc breathed and glanced down at the leavings of the picnic. He shrugged and started on, hoping fervently that he wouldn't overtake them again. With his eyes behaving so strangely everything became so fraught with complexities. When, for instance, was a nude not a nude?
Meanwhile, in another clearing just a bit farther along, Julie, her blonde hair glinting golden in the sunshine, sat in a leafy bower with her wide yellow skirts spread artfully about her long, aristocratic legs. The hypnotic whisper of the stream was in her ears and the spell of the first day of spring was in her blue eyes. From beneath drowsily lowered lids, she watched Mario as he arranged his canvas and paints and then, looking up, came toward her.
"The neck of the blouse, Madonna mia," he said, "it needs to be just a trifle lower so as to display more of the—uh—shoulder." He reached out a slender hand. "May I?"
Julie looked up, and for a moment her eyes met his. She glanced quickly away, wondering what in the world was coming over her; she had never felt this odd melting sensation before. Inwardly, she gave herself a little shake, as a reminder that she was not a predatory creature of impulse, no matter how much she felt like one. Then Mario's hand touched her shoulder and she shivered. For just that one instant it was as though Marc had never existed; the spell of the spring was too strong.
"Mario!" she breathed.
"Madonna!" Mario whispered fervently, dropping to her side. "You are exquisite! You are like a rare jewel in the sunlight!" And his arm moved practicedly toward her shoulder.
Their eyes met, and for a moment the tableau of romantic danger held, suspended in time, it seemed. Then it shattered as the greenery suddenly parted around them and a host of naked figures, desperately clutching bunches of leaves to themselves, flooded into the clearing. Julie looked up frightenedly and screamed.
"Good heavens!" she cried.
The undraped stampeders stopped short. There was an interval of stunned silence, then the leafy interlopers, seized with a fit of modesty, hastily huddled together and crouched down.
"My God!" a small round-eyed man gasped. "We're surrounded. Everybody's wearing clothes today."
"Everywhere you look," said a tousled-looking blond, "there's concealment!"
The silence returned, more awkwardly this time. The nudists stared worriedly at Julie and Mario and they, too stunned for words, stared back. Julie, from sheer nervousness, finally spoke.
"You—you haven't any clothes on!" she observed rather foolishly.
"We are aware of that, madam," a bald-pated gentleman said miserably. "And we're growing more aware of it every minute. You don't have to tell us."
"Don't you even care?" Julie asked shakenly. "Don't youwantto have any on?"
"No, we don't," the first man said defiantly. "We feel that for the sake of our health—and morals, too—we shouldn't have."
"It may be wonderful for your health," Julie said doubtfully, "but I can't think it would do much for your morals."
"That's because you don't understand," a woman snapped. "You're not a right-thinker."
"Well, it hardly matters now whether I understand or not," Julie said. "Are you going to go on like that indefinitely?"
"Not wearing clothes?" the man asked.
"No," Julie said. "Crouching there, I mean, staring around. You are making me terribly uncomfortable."
"If we stood up," a skinny man said, "we'd make you a lot more uncomfortable."
"Yes," Julie agreed quickly. "I suppose you would. Still, we can't just all sit here like this, can we?"
"I don't know about you, lady," the skinny man said, "But I'd rather not."
"Then, what will we do?" Julie said. "If we close our eyes will you promise to go away—very quietly."
"But where will we go?" the man asked. "The woods are alive with non-nudists today. We hardly know which way to turn."
"You should have thought of that before you took your clothes off," Julie said edgily.
At the far end of the clearing there was a dry parting of the bushes and Marc ambled into range. His gaze went no farther than the nearest nudist and, despite the gun, he put his hands over his eyes.
"Marc!" Julie cried.
At the sound of Julie's voice Marc's face drained of all color. The worst had happened, just as he had suspected. Under Mario's degrading influence, Julie had not only gone astray, she had even joined the nudists.
"Julie!" he cried forlornly. "How could you do a thing like this?"
"A thing like what?" Julie asked, getting to her feet. "What are you talking about?"
"Running around—like that!" Marc said.
"I'm not running around," Julie said, inching her neckline up guiltily. "Why are you holding your hands over your eyes like that? And what are you doing with that gun?"
"I can't bear to look," Marc said. "I may shoot myself."
"What!" Julie said, then smiled. "Oh, it's all this bare skin that upsets you, eh?"
Marc winced anew. "Doesn't it bother you?" he asked.
"You'll never know how much," Julie said, "but they say it's good for the health and the morals."
"Morals!" Marc said. "I'm surprised you even know the word any longer. I think I'd better leave."
"Well, if I can face all this, surely you can, too," Julie said. "You still haven't explained what you're doing with that gun."
The skinny nude gentleman stirred anxiously. "Are you people going to go on chatting all day?" he asked plaintively. "My leaves are beginning to wilt."
"Your leaves," Julie said tartly, "are no concern of ours."
"If they droop just a little bit farther they'll be everybody's concern," the man said wanly.
"Yes, they certainly will," Marc shuddered. He turned in Julie's direction. "I hope your leaves are holding up all right."
"I don't have any leaves," Julie said. "Why should I have? Why are you acting so strange?"
Marc started forward. As he did so, he caught his toe on a projecting root and stumbled. Lurching forward, he threw out his hand blindly and inadvertently pulled the trigger of the gun. There was a deafening report and a bullet sailed into the air. Julie, clutching at Mario's arm screamed at the top of her lungs.
"He's trying to kill us!" she yelled. "Run, Mario, run!"
Mario hardly needed the invitation; even before it was completed, he had begun to put his feet into motion. Dragging Julie after him, he crashed into the brush, and the two of them disappeared from sight.
"Julie!" Marc said brokenly. He opened his eyes and looked in the direction of their departure. He glanced back at the nudists. "I hope you're satisfied!"
"We're not, mister," the skinny man wailed. "We can't hold onto these leaves forever. What will we do then?"
"I wouldn't be surprised at anything," Marc said nastily, "not from a gang like you."
Like a belated echo in the distance, there was the sound of a loud report from the direction in which Julie and Mario had departed.
"Good Lord!" Marc said, leaping forward. "I forgot!" He started toward the bushes just in time to collide with Toffee who darted suddenly into the open.
"They're after them!" Toffee cried. "They heard your shot and closed in!" There was the sound of two more shots. Marc started forward, but Toffee held him back.
"Don't go out there!" she cried. "They're in a mood to shoot anything that moves!"
"But if they kill Mario, Julie will swear I did it!" Marc said. "I've got to stop them!"
Suddenly the air rattled with gunfire, this time closer at hand. In the quiet that followed there was the sound of swiftly approaching footsteps. An instant later, Moose crashed into the clearing and jounced to a stop against Marc's chest.
"Get outa the way, you civilian!" the thug yelled blindly. "The joint is swarmin' with bulls!"
Marc had only barely digested this frenzied bulletin when Floss, Hotstuff, the blousy blonde and the other assorted criminals hurtled drunkenly through the opening.
"Cops everywhere!" Hotstuff wailed. He fixed Marc with a cold eye. "Who tipped 'em off, huh?"
"I didn't," Marc said. "Where are they?"
"Fannin' out!" Floss whined. "Closin' in!"
"Both at the same time?" Toffee asked curiously.
"Well, I suppose it's better than murder," Marc said hopelessly.
During this exchange, the fugitives had collected themselves enough to be aware of the nudists, who, rising, were clutching their greenery to them with trembling fright.
"Holy gee!" Floss said. "Will you look at them! What's goin' on here, an open air smoker?"
"We do it for our health," the plump woman said defensively.
"That's a new angle," Floss said interestedly.
"The police!" the skinny man moaned, unaware of Floss' roving eye. "They'll arrest us!"
"Boy," Floss said evilly, "what a place for a pair of prunin' shears!"
"Floss!" Hotstuff said severely. "This is no time for fun. The cops will be swarmin' all over us in a minute!"
"Are we just going to stand here and let them arrest us?" Toffee said.
"We're surrounded," Moose said. "We'll have to shoot our way out."
"No!" Marc yelled. "Absolutely no more shooting!"
"We nudists," the skinny man announced quaveringly, "refuse to have any part in all this."
"You shut up!" Moose snarled. The sound of a wailing siren approached from the distance. "Good God, they're on wheels now! They've got us out-pointed."
There was a general nervous shuffling as the assembled law-offenders moved forward to view their oncoming fate. The movement was suddenly arrested, however, as a roaring sound, accompanied by the snap and crunch of despoiled underbrush, echoed near at hand.
"Holy smoke!" Marc cried, "they're sending in tanks!"
"Everybody grab something!" Floss said hysterically. "A lady must defend herself to the end!"
"And then what?" Toffee inquired bitterly.
Already, the trees and bushes at the end of the clearing were starting to thrash about with frenzied agitation. A tree crashed to earth and, plowing over it, in a veering rush, came the yellow sight-seeing bus. The driver, markedly foggy of eye, leaned his head out the window.
"The cops!" he yelled. "They're after me! They've been chasing me to hell and gone all over the place!" With a great grinding of brakes, the bus jolted to a stop. "I gotta get outa here!" He peered down at Marc. "Which way do I go, mister?"
"Hey, wait!" Toffee said. "We've all got to get out of here!" She ran around to the door of the bus. "Open up!"
There was a crush of humanity as nudists and thugs alike struggled to climb into the palpitating bus.
"Snap into it!" the driver barked. "They're comin' in droves, those cops, and they're all sore as hell!"
Marc and Toffee stumbled to the rear of the bus and dropped into adjoining seats.
"At least we've got a running start," Toffee said breathlessly.
"Toward what, though?" Marc asked dismally. "The law thinks I'm an undesirable and my wife thinks I'm a homicidal maniac. Have I thanked you sufficiently for your wonderful help in this affair?"
"At least I tried," Toffee said. "You might show a little gratitude for that."
But Marc wasn't listening. He was gaping at the others as they climbed aboard and fell into their seats up ahead.
"My gosh!" he breathed.
"What is it?" Toffee asked.
"In all this excitement—and with all those nudists around—I didn't notice."
"Notice what?"
"The elixir is wearing off. Now, everybody's in their underwear! Except the nudists, of course."
"Well, at least," Toffee sighed, "you can keep your eyes open now."
"I'm not so sure," Marc said. "You should see Hotstuff's underwear—begonias on a field of purple."
"No!" Toffee said delightedly. "I suppose even he has his poetic side."
The conversation stopped short as the bus leaped ahead, throwing the passengers back in their seats.
"We'll try to circle around them!" the driver called out. "Hang on!"
There was a crash as the bus lunged back into the foliage. Branches lashed frenetically at the windows and skittered back into the distance. There was a communal scream as a large oak loomed before the windshield, but the driver, pulling frantically at the wheel, managed to send the bus swerving around it. Presently, the leaping, bucking vehicle fought its way clear of the wilds and emerged onto the green expanse of the lawns.
It all happened too quickly for any of the participants to have a very clear view of exactly what happened. One thing, though, was woefully evident; the driver had gotten mixed up in his directions. As they quitted the undergrowth, they suddenly found themselves in a head-on rush toward the charging ranks of the law. All at once the landscape was fairly littered with scrambling, dissembling cops. A siren shrieked with mechanical outrage.
"Give it the gas!" the passengers yelled. "Give it hell!"
The driver reacted automatically and pressed his foot down on the gas with everything he had. The bus shot ahead, wildly out of control, and headed into a zig-zag course toward the house. In the path there suddenly loomed a pair of distracted figures who, at the sound of the churning bus, looked back and instantly froze in their tracks.
"Julie!" Marc screamed, leaping from his seat and fighting his way to a position beside the driver. "Julie! Run!"
Outside, Julie merely covered her face with her hands. "Oh, Lord!" she wailed. "Now he's after us with a bus!"
At the last second Marc grabbed the wheel from the driver and yanked at it furiously. The bus careened to one side as Julie and Mario leaped or fainted to the grass, out of the way. The bus roared on, while in the background the siren hurled its piercing tone to the sky. Somewhere in the distance a voice barked hoarsely.
"Fire!" it bellowed. "Get 'em in the tires! That bus is packed with lunatics!"
There was an instantaneous volley of gunfire and suddenly the bus skittered to one side, teetered precariously on two wheels, then righted itself and plunged dead-on into the substantial trunk of a weeping willow. There was a thunderous crash, a rising chorus of terrified voices and then silence.
By fighting her way through the mass of struggling bodies in the aisle, Toffee managed to reach Marc's prone figure. She dropped down beside him and drew his head gently into her lap.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
Marc opened his eyes and looked at her mistily. "I think so," he said. "I feel so drowsy, though." Then suddenly he frowned.
"What is it?" Toffee asked quickly.
"Julie...." Marc said.
"Julie? What about her?"
"She wasn't with the nudists after all," Marc murmured. "I mean she wasn't one of them."
"Well, what's so bad about that?"
Marc sighed unhappily. "She's wearing pink lace underwear!" he said. "And she's never worn it before." With that, as though the thought were too much for him, he closed his eyes and went limp in her arms.
Toffee, like a drifting, though shapely, cloud of smoke, faded rapidly into thin air.
"Jeez!" breathed a cop who had reached the door of the bus just in time to witness this phenomenon. "This gang is even creepier than we thought!"
Judge Frennish plainly boggled at the sight that greeted his astonished eyes as he ascended the bench.
The defendants had split themselves into definite factions. At one side of the court the nudists had huddled together in a tight little protective unit, while the thugs and their dolls had disdainfully withdrawn to the other side. Marc, still in a state of slumber, had been casually deposited in a chair, mid-distant between the two groups.
Briefly, the judge studied these separate crime camps and turned a disillusioned gaze toward Sergeant Feeney who had reluctantly accompanied him to the bench.
"Good grief, Feeney," he said, "do you mean to say you picked up this gang all in one place?"
"All in one place," Sergeant Feeney nodded wearily.
"Good Lord!"
"Definitely, your honor," Sergeant Feeney agreed. "The ones without any clothes claim they were havin' a picnic."
"I'll just bet they were," the judge said. "Though I shouldn't think they'd care to be so frank about it." He sighed tremulously. "And the others? I see many familiar and loathsome faces there."
"They explained that they were botany students out for a field day. They're still quite drunk, your honor."
"Isn't that Hotstuff Harold there in the middle?"
"Yes, your honor," Sergeant Feeney said thinly, "he insists he's the head of the class."
"Quite a haul," the judge said. "I only wish they'd haul them somewhere else. What about that tall fellow there who seems to be asleep? Is he the one who was turned in earlier on the morals charge?"
"Yes, your honor. There's nothin' rightly wrong with him, accordin' to the doctor. Either he's shammin' or he's been takin' dope."
"A nasty business, Feeney," the judge commented sourly. He glanced around the room as though hoping to find some unexpected avenue of escape, then shrugged. "I suppose I might as well plunge in." Picking up the gavel, he banged it heavily on the bench. The defendants and the spectators looked up apprehensively.
"The court will come to order!" the judge announced, a severe look coming into his dark eyes. "It had darned well better, anyway." He fixed the nudists with a steely glance. "Is there a spokesman for this shameless group over here?"
The skinny man edged forward, clutching his badly drooping leaves. He flushed embarrassedly.
"I suppose I am, your honor," he said weakly.