George stood meekly in the cloud-mists while the Council discussed his case....
George stood meekly in the cloud-mists while the Council discussed his case....
George stood meekly in the cloud-mists while the Council discussed his case....
"Yes, sir," George offered timidly.
"And now," the Head continued, "there is the matter of your character. If it deserves the name. Actually, you are the most characterless spirit I have ever had the displeasure to encounter. In you are combined all the base qualities which we strive so hard to fight in this region. Sometimes I find myself looking on you as a sort of trash dump in which are collected all the vile qualities which we have managed to cleanse from the other spirits. But that's only desperate rationalization. How you happen to be as you are I have never been able to figure out. It appears that for every virtue your earthly part has acquired you have embraced an additional evil. At any rate, you are no angel, and that's the very least I have to say on the matter.
"The point is that we do not dare to hope that you will stick to the accepted and orthodox procedures of haunting, let alone be even the least bit of consolation to Pillsworth's survivors. We only ask—no, we demand—that you do not disgrace the fine traditions of haunting. It will be plainly understood that you may be recalled and punished at any time should you get so far out of line as to be an embarrassment to us. In other words, Pillsworth, watch your step. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir," George said mildly. He gazed down at his toes, dissolved them nervously. "Yes, indeed, sir."
"Very well, then," the Head said. "You will prepare to take the oath by swearing from memory to the ten rules. Raise your right hand." He turned to one of his colleagues on the bench. "If this isn't a hollow mockery, I've never seen one," he muttered.
The favored entity nodded. "As hollow as Aunt Maggie's bustle," he said. "And twice as tacky."
George raised his right hand and solemnly lifted his eyes in a heavenward direction. The ten rules, transcribed there sometime before in hopeful anticipation of this moment, had remained quite legible on the sleeve of his atmospheric robe.
Fully dressed now and returned to the edge of his bed, Marc watched the first faint beginnings of night's evolution into day. Since he had kindly been spared any knowledge of the other force which had been released by the explosion in the basement, his thoughts concerned themselves with the staggering circumstance of Toffee and the buoyant debris. He rose, crossed to the door, and listened for any sound from across the hall. It was quiet there now.
Leaving the door, he went to the bureau at the far side of the room, cautiously opened the top drawer, careful to keep his hand over the opening, and caught the little black book as it gained freedom and shot upward. He put it in the breast pocket of his jacket and fastened it there by clasping his pen over it. Then he crossed quickly to the wardrobe, took out a light topcoat, draped it over his arm, and returned to the door. He paused again to listen, then shoved the door open and stepped silently out into the hallway.
In the basement, at the bottom of the steps, he paused and glanced tentatively about, braced himself against an attack from the redhead. He waited a moment, then called Toffee's name.
There was a moment of quiet, then a slight rustling as Toffee appeared from the shadows of the wine bins. She raised her arms above her head and stretched with a languorous yawn. In the grey light of early morning her apparel, or rather the lack of apparel, was even more startling than it had been during the night. Marc glanced quickly away and held out the coat.
"Here," he said distractedly. "Put this on. And button it up all the way down."
Toffee looked at the coat without interest. "What for?" she asked with bland innocence. "And, besides, how can I button it up and down at the same time?"
"Never mind," Marc said. "Just cover your nakedness."
"My nakedness?" Toffee said. "Why in the world would I want to cover it? What's wrong with it? I have a perfectly divine nakedness. I'll match my nakedness with yours any time...."
"No!" Marc broke in. "Don't go on."
"Well, with anyone's nakedness, then, if you're going to be edgey. I haven't anything to be ashamed of."
"If you did," Marc said bitterly, "you wouldn't have the decency to be ashamed of it. Put the coat on and stop wasting time."
Toffee shrugged bewilderedly and took the coat from his outstretched hand. "Oh, well," she said, slipping it on, "if you're going to make a scene about anything so silly. Where are we going?"
"T wish I knew," Marc said wearily. "Anywhere away from here. Obviously, you can't hang around here where Julie will run into you."
"No," Toffee said mildly. "I suppose not. Though it would be fun to see her reaction. Might do her a world of good." She waved a hand at the wreckage clustered on the ceiling. "What about that? What are you going to do about your experiment?"
Marc shrugged. "I have to think about that later, when I've got you out of my hair."
Together, they proceeded to the hole in the wall. Marc lifted Toffee out, then boosted himself after. Toffee reached down to give him a hand.
"Don't look so glum," she said. "Nothing really awful has happened. Not yet."
"Be quiet," Marc said.
He led her to the garage at the back of the house, cautiously lifted the door and indicated a large green convertible. "Get in," he instructed.
"I am your slave," Toffee said with mock subservience. "Take me where you will." She got into the car.
Mincing slightly, Marc slid into the seat beside her. "Be quiet," he said. "Let's try to get out of here without waking up Julie."
It was unfortunate that Marc, in his haste to remove Toffee from the premises, did not have the foresight to raise the top of the convertible. With that one small act of protection he might have secured a clean getaway. As it was, with him and Toffee exposed and plain to the eyes of the world, he threw the convertible into gear and backed out of the garage toward just about the most slipshod escape ever enacted by man.
As the car slid smoothly down the drive, Marc switched off the ignition so that it might coast soundlessly past that part of the house which held the window to Julie's room. It was precisely at this point, of course, that tragedy befell. The black book twisted itself lose in Marc's pocket and suddenly shot upward.
"Oh, good grief!" Marc said. He put on the brakes.
As he and Toffee watched, the book sailed higher, flitted a bit to one side and lodged itself in a cross-section of trellis precisely next to Julie's window.
"What are you going to do?" Toffee whispered.
"Climb up and get it, I suppose," Marc said wretchedly. "I can't leave it there." He got out of the car, then turned back. "Don't you make a move while I'm gone."
Toffee nodded vigorously and pulled the collar of her coat up around her face. "I'll be positively furtive," she giggled.
Marc made his way to the trellis, tested it with his foot, and started up. Several feet up, he paused to listen. Then, reassured, he continued upward. A moment later he was within reaching distance of the book. He sighed with relief.
Down in the car Toffee watched without great concern. However, she was anxious to be away; it was dull just sitting there. She looked around for some way to hasten matters. It was then that she conceived the idea of starting the car so that they could continue their flight the moment Marc returned to the ground. She glanced at the profusion of knobs on the elaborate dash board, thoughtfully selected the prettiest, and twisted....
It was in the same moment that Marc reached for the little book and caught hold of it, that the early morning suddenly thundered with a booming rendition of "Anchors Aweigh!" performed by a marine band. All at once, drums throbbed, cymbals clanged and bugles blared with all the crashing enthusiasm that a hundred healthy seagoing men could muster.
Marc whirled about, clinging to the trellis, and stared down at Toffee in horror. But Toffee was too busy frantically twisting knobs to notice. The music swelled and became louder as windows began to fly open all over the neighborhood. On the trellis, Marc was assailed with a chill feeling that there were eyes on the back of his neck. As he turned about, his nose came within a fraction of brushing Julie's.
"Oh, Lord!" he moaned in belated prayer.
"Marc Pillsworth!" Julie shrieked, leaning further out the window. "What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?" Then her astonished gaze moved to the car and Toffee. "Who is that woman?"
Marc glanced distractedly down at Toffee, as though seeing her there for the first time. "That's nobody," he murmured feebly.
And the next instant it seemed that he had almost spoken the truth, that indeed the car, Toffee and the pounding radio had never actually been there at all. As a unit, as Toffee's frantic hand quickly selected another button and pressed it, they all shot backwards out of the drive and out of sight. Toffee's shriek of dismay was added discordantly to the moan of a naval tuba and the scream of racing tires. Marc glanced desperately at the stunned, sleep-stained faces peering from the houses across the street and shudderingly closed his eyes. With the others, he waited for the sound of the crash. But it did not come.
"Marc Pillsworth...!" Julie began, then stopped as Toffee and the green convertible suddenly reappeared as swiftly and sensationally as they had departed. Still travelling backwards, the car shot into the drive with a spray of gravel and headed toward the house like a thing possessed. Toffee was wildly manipulating the wheel on a hit or miss basis.
"Help!" she screamed.
"Turn right!" Marc yelled from the trellis. "Turn right!"
Automatically, Toffee followed instructions. She grasped the wheel with both hands and pulled to the right. The car swerved, crashed over a flower bed and headed for the lawns. There, pawing turf like a reversed bull, it described a wide circle and started back for the drive.
Toffee waved elatedly to Marc over her shoulder. "Now I've got it!" she cried. "It's easy!" Apparently, she did not realize that she had learned to drive backwards, that there was another way of directing the mechanism.
Racing the car to the area in front of the garage, she whipped it around down the drive again. She looked up at Marc.
"Jump as I come past!" she yelled.
"Who is that?" Julie shrieked, finally recovering her voice. "Answer me! Marc Pillsworth, stay right where you are!"
"Jump!" Toffee yelled. "Now!"
Marc landed on the seat beside Toffee and felt himself borne, as if by the wind itself, down the drive.
The band swung into a booming arrangement of "Don't Give Up The Ship!" as, hind bumper first, they skidded into the street and sped away....
CHAPTER IV
The towers of the Wynant Hotel, a snobbish establishment whose austere front hulked over the general public with stoney aloofness, marked the center of the city.
Within, the Wynant shed upon its cowed clientele all the warmth and home-like comfort of a walk-in freezing unit. The personnel had obviously been trained to regard the paying guest as a fraud, a vandal and a momentary fugitive from social and moral levels so low as to be mainly inhabited by gophers.
As to decor, the Wynant had permitted itself only a single divergence from the completely austere. In the center of its vast foyer there was a fountain and pool, topped with the marble figure of a woman in the final stages of dishabille. The lady in question, however, was of a classic pedigree and, therefore, her condition of undress was permissible; one was allowed to look upon her classic charms without fear of suspicion from the bellhops. If the guests of the Wynant, who stayed there mainly for the dubious purposes of prestige, felt a certain affection for the lady of the fountain, it was because she, in her classic security, was accomplishing for them the very thing they had always longed to do themselves; she had presented herself solidly in the very center of the Wynant and caused an area of dampness thereupon. It did not matter that the lady clutched her nakedness to her in a fit of modesty; the guests of the Wynant knew what she really had on her mind and loved her for it with a devout intensity.
Marc had always considered the Wynant a veritable bully of a place, and this opinion was generally shared by a multitude of others. On the one occasion when he had gone to the Wynant to attend what was unanimously conceded to be the most stultifying businessmen's luncheon in the annals of human commerce, he had vowed never to set foot in the place again. However, there always comes a time to break even the most solemn of vows.
It was logic of a sort that caused Marc to bring Toffee to the Wynant; if there was any atmosphere chill enough to conquer the irrepressible redhead's wayward disposition, the Wynant had just such an atmosphere to offer in aces and spades. It was Marc's rather naive thought to banish Toffee to the more elevated regions of this spiritual salt mine and leave her there until, out of sheer, screaming boredom, she made up her mind to disappear to the place from whence she had come. Thus he would be free to make his peace with Julie and set his house in order in the several ways that it now required.
Noting the doorman's glance of disapproval as they entered, Marc carefully jockeyed himself into a position in front of Toffee so that she might be hidden from view. The top coat, several cuts too long both in the sleeves and the skirt, did little to give the girl an air of refinement. As rapidly as he could, Marc led her across the broad foyer to the desk at the opposite side of the room. Toffee flapped obediently along behind him, but her gaze moved curiously toward the fountain and its unclad mistress.
"Is that one of the guests taking a bath?" she asked innocently.
"Certainly not," Marc said. "It's a statue. That fact is quite evident."
Toffee's eyes narrowed suspiciously on the statue. "She looks awfully lifelike to me."
"Don't worry," Marc said. "You won't have to take your bath in public."
"I wasn't worried," Toffee said absently.
They proceeded to the desk and were instantly greeted by a clerk of a precise black-and-white perfection. Though the man was shorter than Marc he still seemed to look down on him from a great height.
"Yes?" he asked with a slight reptilian hiss.
Marc had prepared his story in advance. "I'd like a suite for my niece," he said.
The clerk regarded Marc's "niece" and her costume and notched up the last small measure of slack in his eyebrows.
"I'm Marc Pillsworth," Marc said hopefully, "of the Pillsworth Advertising Agency."
The clerk regarded Marc with a cool steadiness that indicated all too plainly that anyone engaged in advertising, in the opinion of the Wynant, was nothing more than a not-so-high-class ballyhoo artist. Then he glanced down at the polished surface of the counter As though expecting to see three shells and a pea suddenly appear there.
"And your niece's luggage?" he asked.
"My niece was in an accident," Marc said quickly. "Her luggage was lost, burned. She's in town to replace the things that were destroyed."
"I see," the clerk said, obviously mulling over the very interesting fact that Toffee had managed to be caught in the accident in nothing but a genleman's topcoat.
"It was so embarrassing," Toffee put in tragically.
"I daresay," the clerk said sourly. He turned back to Marc. "I'm afraid the hotel is completely filled."
Marc sighed. Now he would have to discover some other disposition for Toffee. But suddenly he was too tired to even think. All at once he was overcome with such a feeling of fatigue that he could hardly restrain himself from leaning down to rest his head on the desk counter. He was exhausted beyond belief. He tried to turn away, but he hadn't even the strength for that. And then his eyes began to play tricks. As he looked at them, the clerk, Toffee, the desk blurred and became hazy. He felt that he was slipping into unconsciousness but he had no sensation of falling. Rather, it was as though he were simply floating away from reality. Reality dimmed, faded away and was gone.... Then suddenly everything jumped back into place with startling clarity. It was as though he had traveled a long, long journey in a space of seconds.
"Marc!" Frightenedly.
It was Toffee who had screamed, and Marc turned quickly toward her. Then he came close to screaming himself. Something had happened to the She had grown so terribly short all of a sudden! And the clerk too. Neither of them rose to a height quite even with his waist. They were both staring up at him in open-mouthed horror.
"What's happened to you?" Marc gasped.
"To us!" Toffee cried. "It's you! What are you doing up there?"
"Up where?" Marc asked. Then suddenly he glanced about him, and his breath made a startled rattling sound at the back of his throat.
At once, Marc could neither deny nor believe what he saw. A dreadful confusion crowded his senses as he regarded the space of thin air that stretched between his feet and the floor. Impossibly he had elevated to a height of about three feet. And he was still rising!
"Oh, Lord!" he yelled.
"Please keep your voice down," the clerk said desperately. "It's bad enough what you're doing, without yelling about it. If this is some advertising stunt...."
"Keep my voice down?" Marc said unhappily. "I can't even keep myself down!"
"It's the explosion!" Toffee cried with sudden realization. "All that stuff floating around in the basement! Now you're doing it, too!"
"Oh, my God!" Marc cried. The exclamation was prompted simultaneously by the terrible realization of his condition and the fact that even while they had been talking he had risen an additional foot into the air.
"I'm going higher!"
The clerk steadied himself uncertainly against the counter. "Please, sir!" he quavered. "You'll have to stop that at once. I'll give you a room, a whole floor, if you'll only stop!"
"You shut up, you quivering ninny," Marc gritted. "Do you think I actually want to do this sort of thing?"
"I don't know," the clerk said uncertainly. "I can't think why you should. I'm sure I'd hate it myself."
"Here!" Toffee yelled. "Take my hand! I'll pull you down!"
Marc reached out to Toffee, but too quickly; the sudden movement caused him to veer away from her. He drifted to one side, revolved helplessly, then moved away.
"Help!" he yelled. "For Pete's sake, help!"
Toffee stood staring at him, too terror stricken to move. She watched, transfixed, as he soared drunkenly across the broad foyer, apparently marking the tide of the air conditioning.
"Oh, Mona!" she murmured. "He's sailing like a kite in an autumn wind!"
Up till this time the foyer had remained blissfully deserted, but this was not a condition destined to endure. At the worst possible moment, just as Marc drifted wordlessly past the doorway, a company of diners entered from the dining room. Four in all, two men and two women, they walked into the room, stopped, observed a figure going past overhead, floating lazily in mid-air like an agonized leaf on the tide, and fell into a tense silence. All four of them stared hauntedly into space for a time. Then one of the ladies, of a lesser fortitude than the others, reached out and took her companion's arm in a death grip.
"I could have sworn I saw...!"
The man, a portly individual with a grey, senatorial mane, reached out and, without hesitation, clapped a hand over the lady's mouth.
"No, you didn't, dear," he said quietly, "we just won't speak of it."
Together, the four turned and silently filed back into the dining room.
"I'd like to enquire about the brandy sauce," the old gentleman said through clenched teeth. "I may sue this place before I'm through."
In the meantime, Toffee had taken out in hot pursuit of Marc. "Grab something!" she panted, running along beneath him. "Grab something and hold on!"
The words came dimly to Marc through the pounding panic in his mind, but he obeyed them automatically. He reached out and felt frantically for something to take hold of. He had risen by now to a height of about eight feet and was circling toward the fountain. It was destiny that guided him to the statue.
He caught hold of the stone lady and grappled to make his grasp firm. If at this point in the proceedings the mistress of the fountain did not reach out and slap Marc it was more because she was made of stone than because of the place where he grabbed her. The effect bordered narrowly on the obscene and became even more questionable as Marc took a toe hold on the lady's mid-section. It was precisely at this moment that the elevator doors directly across from the fountain slid open and a delegation of conventioning club ladies arrived.
As a unit the ladies quitted the car, started forward, then stopped short. Twenty-two well-padded bosoms rose and fell sharply and twenty-two discreetly tinted mouths opened on a single gasp of horror.
"Would you look at that!" one of the ladies blurted.
"I'm trying not to," another answered in a shocked whisper. "What is he trying to do to her?"
"I shudder to think. But look where he's got hold of her!"
"I can't," another moaned, closing her eyes tight. "It's too awful! If anyone ever grabbed me like that...!" Her voice shuddered away into silence.
"Police!"
So soon did the others pick up the cry, there was no way of telling which of the ladies had started it. Suddenly, the foyer shrieked from end to end and top to bottom with a call to all officialdom to come and defend the honor of the besieged statue. The ladies, milling frantically among themselves, were screaming themselves into a fair frenzy.
At the fountain Toffee was lending her voice to the general confusion. The sight of Marc clinging to another woman, whether of stone or flesh, did not set well with the redhead.
"You stop that!" she snapped, from the edge of the pool. "You let go of that marble huzzy before I come up there and knock her block off!"
"Don't be silly!" Marc called back unhappily. "She's not real. Besides, I can't let go!"
"I don't care about that," Toffee said. "What burns me up is what you're probably thinking up there."
"Good grief!" Marc cried. "I'm not thinking anything!"
"Oh, no?" Toffee sneered. "No man on earth could grab a woman the way you've grabbed that one and not be thinking something."
"Stop blathering nonsense," Marc said furiously, "and do something. Help me get down from here."
"You bet I will," Toffee said grimly. And with that she stepped lightly to the wall of the pool, peeled off her coat and stepped down into the water.
"No!" Marc yelled. "No!"
"Oh, my land!" one of the club ladies shrieked above the others. "Now there's a naked woman swimming around in the pool!"
"It's probably that poor statue trying to get away!" one of her sisters replied.
As Toffee swam toward the pedestal and the statue, the doors of the Wynant became crowded with shoving spectators who had been attracted by the din inside. The foyer began to fill rapidly. Behind the desk, a door opened and the manager of the Wynant ran to the desk clerk. He was a plum-cheeked, small man with dark hair and, at the moment, an extremely florid complexion. He grabbed the clerk by the shoulder and swung him around.
"What's going on here?" he demanded. He glanced toward the statue. "Who is that man up there? What is he doing? And that woman?"
The clerk trembled under his grasp. "I don't know," he said weakly. "I told them they couldn't stay here."
"Do something!" the manager piped. "This isn't a fun house!"
"Would you swear to it?" the clerk pleaded.
It was just as Toffee had reached the pedestal and was starting upward toward Marc and the statue that the elevator door slid open for a second time, and Mrs. Arbuthner-Wright, a small invalid of advanced years and means, manoeuvered her wheelchair into the tumultuous foyer. Mrs. Arbuthner-Wright had occupied the Wynant penthouse suite for almost twenty years now. Starting across the foyer, she braked her chair to a sudden stop and observed the activity at the fountain with an interested but unperturbed eye. She turned to the manager.
"Well, I'll be damned," she commented dryly. "It's about time this place got a floor show." She looked back at the statue. "You've got to give him credit for spunk. But I'll lay odds on the statue."
But the manager did not hear her. He only knew that the impossible had happened; the reputation of the Wynant had been placed in jeopardy. It had to be stopped at any cost. Shoving the trembling clerk aside, he dodged around the end of the desk and forced his way through the crowd to the brink of the pool. He climbed quickly to the wall of the pool just as Toffee reached Marc and went determinedly about the business of trying to dislodge him from his curvesome anchorage.
"There's no cause for excitement!" the manager yelled, turning to face the crowd. "It's really nothing!"
"Maybe you call it nothing," one of the club ladies snorted with fiery indignation.
"No! No!" the manager yelled. He held up his hands for quiet. "Listen to me! You don't understand! Nothing wrong is going on here!" It was better to defend these demented vandals than have the good name of the Wynant soiled. "These people are only cleaning the statue!"
"Oh, yeah!" a small, shabby-looking man sneered. "That statue'll never be clean again as long as she lives!"
The manager glanced wretchedly behind him and shuddered as he realized that current activities did nothing to substantiate the lie he had just told; never had so many pairs of grappling arms and legs combined themselves in one place to give such a glaring picture of pure, wanton abandon. With Marc clutching the statue, and Toffee clutching Marc, the statue seemed to be clutching herself with a new desperation that could never possibly have been achieved by mere chiseled stone; the poor dumb thing seemed suddenly to realize that not only her modesty but also her honor was at stake.
"Let go of her, you debauched floater!" Toffee hissed in Marc's ear. "Let go of her before I tear you apart!"
"I can't!" Marc panted, hanging on for dear life. "Do you want me to get spiked on the chandelier?"
"Better that than atrophied to this naked trollop!" Toffee said.
"If I were that statue," one of the club ladies whispered, "I'd never be able to face my friends again."
"Oh, I don't know, lady," said a rather dapper but vague-looking gentleman. "You know how statues are. They're always standing around without any clothes on and leering at each other. In that statue's crowd this sort of thing is just child's play."
"What kind of children play like that?" the woman snapped.
"What kind of children? Do I look like the kind of a man who goes around prying into the affairs of children?" He drew himself up. "Lady, are you trying to trap me into an argument about children?"
In the meantime the manager had turned his efforts from the outraged crowd to the entangled couple clinging to the statue.
"Come down from there!" he bawled, "Come down this instant!"
Almost as though at his command, the struggle on the statue came to an abrupt end. Marc, with a cry of warning, suddenly lost his grip and lurched to one side. Toffee tightened her hold on his neck and clung fast. In the next instant, entirely under the pull of Toffee's weight, they plunged together downward and into the pool below. There was a murmur from the crowd. Then there was a brief scream from the manager as, in jumping to avoid the splash, he lost his footing and joined the pair in the water.
The crowd watched tensely as the three heads disappeared beneath the surface of the pool, then soggily reappeared. A murmur of comment rose throughout the room, then suddenly silenced with a gasp.
One of the heads was not behaving at all as it should; it not only reappeared, but continued to move higher and higher into the air, dragging its lank and dripping body after it.
Slowly, Marc rose entirely out of the pool, hovered for a moment, and then came to rest, his feet resting lightly and exactly on the surface of the water. The soaking he had just received had provided him with enough extra poundage that his buoyancy had been somewhat tempered but not entirely destroyed. A smothered cry of dismay echoed around him as he stood blandly on the surface of the pool, then leaned forward to knock the water out of his ears.
The other two heads swiveled about to regard him with contrasting degrees of interest. For a moment the manager stared at Marc, then slowly sank out of sight again beneath the green obscurity of a lily pad.
Toffee turned graciously to the sea of gaping faces around her.
"Give me a hand someone," she said.
"Not me, lady," a man near the edge said. "With the company you keep, I wouldn't give you so much as a clipping off my fingernail."
Toffee glanced around for a volunteer, then suddenly dived down to join the manager beneath the lily pad.
Help was on its way at last and it wore a dark blue uniform. For the first time since its erection the lofty ceiling of the Wynant echoed back the firm and hurried tread of flat feet.
Across the room Mrs. Arbuthner-Wright wheeled her chair back into the elevator and smilingly plucked at the operator's sleeve.
"Remind me to renew my lease on the penthouse this week, Joe," she said. "After twenty years this place is beginning to be interesting."
CHAPTER V
Meanwhile, Julie Pillsworth had not only lost her poise, but a shocking amount of bodily moisture; a good full-lunged cry in the private confines of her bed had done nothing to erase the memory of her husband disporting himself loosely about the landscape with a strange redhead under the very noses of their neighbors.
Julie dared not draw any conclusions concerning the affair of the trellis; there were too many emotions involved, and she, having formed her marriage on what she firmly believed to be a solid foundation of logic and sound theory, was not practiced in the ways of emotion. Suddenly, emotionally, Julie was in a strange land without a guide, at a ball game without a program, up a creek without a paddle. Briefly, she was no end confused and upset.
Perhaps Julie might have eventually reached the right conclusion and even done the right thing, for in the back of her mind was the vague feeling that Marc's sudden burst of misbehavior was the result of some obscure failing in herself. She might have, that is, if May Springer and Jewel Drummer hadn't appeared on the scene just as her thoughts were turning in that direction.
May was a small, bird-boned, heron-faced woman with a voice as slight and chirping as the mentality which it served. Jewel was the other side of the picture: dog-jawed, thunder voiced and overwhelmingly double-breasted. These two had long since elected themselves to be Julie's "best friends," and now that Julie was in trouble they had come to help. In short, this was just the chance they had been waiting for.
The three women watched tensely as the maid left the tea things on the table and departed from the living room through the hall. Julie instantly returned her tear-stained face to her handkerchief. May and Jewel exchanged a look and hitched themselves forward in their chairs in the manner of a pair of ditch diggers rolling up their sleeves to go to work.
"I wouldn't hesitate a second," May piped. "I'd start divorcing the bum right now. The time to let him have it is the first minute you hear about the other woman. And, honey, yousawher! I did too for that matter. When that awful clatter started, and I looked out of my window and saw your husband with that woman...! Well! I'll testify, honey! They'll never shut me up."
"Me too, dear," Jewel put in heavily from beyond the rolling hills of her bosom. "Of course I didn't actually see anything, but I heard it all. The only thing for you to do is just close up the house and go to Reno while it's all fresh in your mind. And let your lawyer do the talking. Remember that."
"I know you feel better, now that you've decided," May said. "Jewel and I will help you get your affairs with the house straightened up." She leaned forward and tapped Jewel lightly on the knee. "Won't we, Jewel?"
Julie looked up moistly from her handkerchief. "But Ihaven'tdecided," she wailed. "That's just it; I can't seem to decide anything. Marc has never done anything like this before. All of a sudden he just blew up the basement and started acting strange. I just can't get over the feeling that maybe it's partly my fault somehow...."
"Ridiculous!" Jewel snorted.
"Of course!" May chimed.
"Oh, I don't know," Julie said hopelessly. "I just have a feeling that Marc isn't to blame, that something strange is happening to him, and he can't help himself. Maybe he needs me very badly right now."
"What's happened to him isn't so strange," Jewel pronounced. "It's just that lousy male chemistry at work. The devils all get that way sooner or later. Men are just a bunch of brutes, all of them. If there's anything mysterious about all this it's only how you manage to feel so damned charitable about it."
Albeit unwittingly on this occasion, Jewel, in all her history of premeditated lies, had never spoken a greater untruth. There was something far more mysterious going on than just Julie's feeling of charity. It wanted only a trip to the basement to be discovered.
The thing that was taking place in the subterranean regions of the house was stranger than either truth or fiction and twice as paralyzing.
The fact of the matter was that George had finally arrived on earth. Starting logically at the beginning, with the first principle of haunting as set down in the Guide, George had descended to the place of his earthly part's untimely demise. Here, according to the rules, there were certain procedures of investigation to be followed; but George was far too excited with his sudden condition of release to be bothered with those. Like a giddy school girl with her first party dress, he could hardly wait to try on his ectoplasm. Even in this, however, there were difficulties involved.
Unfortunately, as George saw it, the process of ectoplasmic materialization depended largely upon the concentration of the entity involved; first he had to thoroughly picture in his mind the earthly form that he was to assume, and then, from that mental image, shape his earthly manifestation. The trouble was that George's powers of concentration had never been anything to brag about.
George's observance of the human form had always been extremely sketchy at best. Faced with the problem of shaping such a form for himself, he was somewhat at a loss. Pressing his memory to the limit he could only recall that there were such things as arms, legs, head and torsos, but the exact number and arrangement of these appointments completely escaped him. Try as he would to think, nothing very clear came to mind. Finally, in desperation, he decided just to give it the old trial-and-error and make it up as he went along. He might have done better to find himself an anatomy chart.
George decided on an arm and a hand to begin with; they seemed a rather utilitarian item to have in the event that you wanted to go around picking things up. He gave his thoughts over to that appendage.
The process worked with surprising facility. In the very next moment an arm, neatly tapering off to a hand, promptly appeared, balanced on the elbow, on the basement floor. George looked at it and felt a thrill of pride at the accomplishment; it didn't matter that the thing was rather starkly at loose ends with itself.
Glowing with the success of his first venture, George decided on a head as the subject of his next efforts. Without a moment's hesitation, but several feet above the arm, a head appeared in thin air, bearing a duplicate face to the one of Marc Pillsworth. It was wonderfully lifelike. It turned, looked down at the arm, and frowned.
Now George wasn't so sure; somehow things didn't seem to be shaping up quite as he'd expected. He shrugged. Probably matters would be improved when everything was more connected together. He thought for a moment and remembered the matter of legs.
A moment later a leg and accompanying foot popped into being, but oddly it appeared in a position near the head, a bit to one side with the foot leading off rakishly toward the ceiling.
The head turned and regarded this phenomenon with worried interest. Definitely, things weren't balancing out at all well. But what was there to do but to go on with it now that it had gotten this far? And then the head smiled; George had remembered. There should be two arms and two legs in place of just one. In the grisly moment that followed, the arm on the floor was joined by a mate, as was the leg hovering in the air by the head.
The head peered with unwarranted pride from between the floating legs and smiled on its accomplishments. Now George felt he was really getting somewhere. There remained only the torso to be materialized. George thought about this and wished it into being.
The picture that followed was lurching madness. Somehow a body had appeared, balanced upside down on its elbows, in the very center of the basement floor. And if that wasn't enough, the head had apparently been severed and placed, for the sake of pure frightfulness, between the knees.
George, now that the body was complete, recognized the error at once. With a blush, he dissolved the head from between the knees and concentrated it down towards the shoulders. The scene instantly became more sane. Now there was a complete and perfectly formed man standing on his elbows in the center of the basement. For a moment he remained rigidly upright, then he wavered and fell flat on his back.
George gazed elatedly down his long length for a moment, then laughed and sat up. Of course! Now everything was just as it should be. He didn't know how he had come to be clothed, and he had no idea that he was wearing an exact duplicate of the suit Marc was wearing, but he considered himself to be a rather natty specimen. All in all, George couldn't have been more pleased. He got to his feet, saluted his new existence with a rather expertly executed jig step, and looked about....
After a casual search of the basement, just to make sure that the corpse of Marc Pillsworth was no longer kicking around anywhere, George directed his attention to the wine bins. If he noticed the floating debris on the ceiling he didn't know that it constituted a condition that was in any way unnatural. He selected a bottle from one of the shelves, opened it, and took a swallow. Immediately, he was overcome with a feeling of enormous disappointment; this couldn't possibly be that whiskey stuff that mortals seemed to miss so much in the upper world. Whiskey, according to report, could cause a poor man to be rich, a peasant to be king. Certainly this drab liquid was far too pallid for that kind of magic. George replaced the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He glanced around at the stairs across from the bins and went over to investigate.
He stopped at the foot of the steps and listened. Distantly, there were voices above—and, therefore, mortals. George decided that now was as good as any other time to plunge into things; perhaps he could pick up a few pointers. He started up the steps, then stopped thoughtfully.
Perhaps it would be better not to burst in upon these mortals in a state of complete materialization; it might just a bit too much for them. Maybe it would be better to break the news of his arrival gradually, let them just suspect for awhile and give himself time to grow on them. That was the ticket; he was sure that even the High Council couldn't find anything wrong with that idea.
George held one foot out before him and dissolved it. Then taking the next step, he repeated the process with the other foot.
Causing himself to disappear a bit at a time he rose slowly toward the world of the mortals....
"There's no use hiding in your handkerchief," May Springer said. "The sooner you talk to your lawyer, the sooner you'll stop crying."
Julie looked up uncertainly. "Maybe you're right," she said. "But I don't know. Oh, I don't know anything!"
"What you need," Jewel said emphatically, "is a drink to give you courage. We all do." She turned to May. "Run out to the bar, pet, and bring us a bottle. This damned tea isn't doing any of us any good."
May, accustomed to acting on Jewel's command, followed instructions. She left the room in the direction of the study and in a moment was back with a bottle and three glasses.
"That's the stuff," Jewel said heartily. "Clear out those tea things and put 'er down. I'll pour."
With everything arranged to her satisfaction, Jewel filled the glasses with a quick and lavish hand. She handed brimming glasses to May and Julie, then raised her own glass to propose a toast.
"To divorce!" she boomed. "And the damnation of husbands!"
Julie raised her glass, but only half-heartedly. Then without even tasting the drink, she placed it on the table in front of her.
"There's nothing like whiskey to open the mind and the pores so that the poison can get out," Jewel announced loudly. "It's wonderful stuff."
It was just at this moment that the invisible George drifted expectantly into the room. He stopped short and pricked up his ears. Whiskey! The very thing he was looking for, and here were mortals fairly wallowing in the stuff. He observed the ladies with an eye mainly to the glasses in their hands. Then he noticed Julie's glass, languishing on the table. It was a circumstance that plainly wanted mending. George drifted quickly forward.
For a moment George only stood regarding the drink covetously. Then he turned to observe the ladies. Since this was to be his first manifestation before an audience he felt he should make the most of the materials at hand. Considering the ladies in turn, he decided that he disliked Jewel Drummer the most. He waited carefully until that turret-faced matron was looking in his direction, then lifted the glass with a broad flourish. Even to George the effect of the drink suddenly flying from the table and into the air seemed rather arresting.
To Jewel the effect was downright terrifying. Her glass raised to her lips, she suddenly started, misdirected her aim and poured the entire drink into her yawning bodice. With horrified reflex she jolted out of her chair and hurled the glass from her. As the glass crashed against the opposite wall, George tossed off his drink and replaced the glass on the table.
In unison, Julie and May turned puzzled eyes on the palpitating Jewel.
"The glass!" Jewel blurted in tones of terror. "The glass!" Then suddenly she gulped and sat down again as the bottle, like the glass, leaped lightly from the table, upended itself over the glass, filled it, then replaced itself.
"The bottle!" Jewel boomed.
"She wants the bottle!" May told Julie. "God, what a thirst that woman's got! Did you see her knock off that drink? And now she's yelling for the bottle. She's fairly lusting for the stuff. Give her the bottle, dear, before she starts breaking the furniture."
Julie quickly snatched up the bottle from the table and held it out to Jewel.
"Here, dear," she said, "take it."
Jewel pressed herself frightenedly against the back of her seat.
"Take it easy!" she screamed. "Don't bring it near me!"
"She fights the stuff all the time," May told Julie confidentially. "Of course I've never really been sure before, but I've suspected all along."
"I must cling to my reason," Jewel babbled desperately to herself. "I mustn't give way!"
"What's that, dear?" May asked soothingly.
"Maybe we should pretend nothing's happened," Julie suggested anxiously. "You know, just go on talking and pay no attention to her."
"It might help," May agreed.
For a moment the two ladies engaged in frenzied and meaningless conversation, cautiously watching Jewel from the corners of their eyes. Jewel, her eyes riveted with terrible fascination on the table, seemed to have gone into a trance.
In the meantime, George, for his part, was suffering the pangs of disappointment. To all intents and purposes, except for a certain feeling of inner warmth, he was feeling much the same as always. The liquor had failed to perform the miracle he had expected. But perhaps that was only because he hadn't had enough. Once more he reached out toward the glass and lifted it from the table.
With a final bellow of madness Jewel heaved her bulk from the chair and bolted from the room.
"God in heaven!" she roared from the hallway. "Let me out of here!"
May rose unhurriedly. "I guess the struggle was too much for her," she said mildly. "You just stay where you are, dear. I'll take her home. Poor Jewel. She'll need someone to talk to, to confide in, and I'm her best friend." Then in an undertone: "I've always thought she belonged in an institution anyway. I'll call you later."
When they had gone, Julie relinquished her spirit to the quiet atmosphere of the room. She had worried and cried, she felt, until she hadn't any emotion left in her. Now she only felt numb. Then she started slightly as a muffled gurgling sound briefly broke the quiet. She glanced around quickly, but there was nothing. Then the doorbell rang. She turned her attention toward the hallway as Marie passed through to answer the door. After a moment the maid returned to the living room.
"There are a couple of gentlemen," she reported. "They say they're from the government and must see you."
Julie was pensive for a moment; she couldn't imagine why anyone from the government should want an interview with her. She shrugged.
"All right, Marie," she said. Then she glanced at the bottle and the glasses on the table; not quite the proper fittings for a chat with the government. "I'll see them in the study."
She rose and started from the room. Then suddenly she heard a small scraping noise and turned back quickly. For a moment she stood still, staring at the table. Could the bottle actually have been moving just as she turned around? But of course that was silly.
Just nerves, she told herself, and continued into the hallway.
After introductions, Julie led the men to the study, gave them seats and took a place opposite them. She would have known they were from the government even if she hadn't been told; with that careful, unrevealing look, they only needed an official stamp of certification on their foreheads.
"Is there something I can do for you?" she asked.
"Well, we're not exactly sure," one of the men said. "However, we have reason to believe you can." He cleared his throat. "To get directly to the point, we are interested in an explosion which we believe took place on these premises last night."
"Oh, dear!" Julie said. "Have the neighbors complained?"
"No, Mrs. Pillsworth, nothing like that. You see, we have mechanical means of knowing about explosions. There is a device in existence which records the precise time, location, magnitude and nature of even the slightest explosion anywhere on the Earth's surface. One was recorded here last night. The nature, however, was undetermined and that's why we decided to investigate."
Julie nodded. She told them of Marc's basement laboratory and his experiments to make heavy substances lighter than air. She explained about the explosion.
"The experiment was a complete failure, I guess," she concluded.
"I see," the man said. "Would you mind, though, if we took a look around in the basement anyway?"
"No, I don't mind," Julie said. "But judging from what I saw down there last night you won't find anything but a lot of rubble."
"Of course," the man said. "But we can't take a chance on a possible new type of explosive. It might be of military interest. Just in case, Mrs. Pillsworth, do you know where your husband kept his notes on the experiment?"
Julie thought for a moment. "In a little black book, I believe," she said. "He just left it lying around loose down there."
The man nodded and got up. "We'll have the maid show us where it is," he said. "Thank you very much."
When they were gone, Julie leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She was so weary, just from talking to people. Then she sat up quickly. She could have sworn she'd heard something out in the hall, a furtive noise, as though someone had cautiously let himself in the front door. She got up and went to the doorway of the study.
"Marc!" she called, then suddenly froze where she was.
Never had she seen two uglier customers than the ones that were now cowering before her in the shadows of the hallway. Two very dark little men with gross black beards, thick-lensed glasses and derby hats. They seemed to be exact and very dreadful duplicates of each other, as though the same awful mistake had happened twice. Their eyes shifted nervously before Julie's horrified gaze. They looked precisely like a pair of spies.
"Who are you two?" Julie asked uneasily. "What are you doing here?"
The two shifted uncomfortably, glanced at each other. Finally the one closest to Julie spoke.
"I'm Gerald Blemish," he said, and nodded toward the other. "This is my twin brother, Cecil. Of course those names are entirely fictitious, but we haven't used our real ones for so long we've forgotten them. Then, on the other hand, maybe those are our real names only we just don't know it. We came with the men from the government."
"Oh," Julie said, relieved. "You're with the government too."
"Oh, no," Gerald Blemish said. "Heavens no. We just followed them in. We're spies."
"Spies?" Julie said incredulously. "Oh, dear! With government men right in the house?"
"Oh, we followed them everywhere," the brother called Cecil said. "We find things out faster that way."
"I can see where you would," Julie said. "Haven't they ever caught you?"
"Oh, yes. They catch us all the time. That's one reason they like to have us around; we're handy in case they want to arrest someone and don't know who to arrest." He glanced at his brother and sniggered noisily. "They think we're harmless."
"We've been arrested in so many shake-ups," Gerald offered, "we're known as the Double Malts to some people. We photograph very well in the newsreels. You know, being taken into custody with our hats over our faces. That's why we wear hats, just for pictures."
"Oh, yes," Cecil put in. "As a matter of fact, we used to be in the movies professionally. We played spies exclusively. Because we look so awful. In fact that's how we got started as spies. After seeing us as spies on the screen all the time, everyone got to believe we really were spies. No one would come near us."
Gerald nodded. "When we went to call on anyone, people refused to answer the door."
"It sort of depressed us at first," Cecil said. "And then, on top of that, the movies stopped using us. The vogue in spies turned to beautiful women. They said we were old hat. That put us out of work. But there wasn't anything else we knew how to do. No one would believe we weren't spies so we just had to go on being them."
"I see," Julie said, feeling that she had wandered into a world of complete madness. "What country do you spy for?"
The brothers glanced quickly at each other, then lowered their eyes to the floor. "That's just the trouble," Gerald said in saddened tones. "We don't work for anyone. We're unsponsored. No country will hire us because we look so much like spies. Other spies refuse to be seen with us."
"I don't wonder," Julie said. "With faces like yours. I wouldn't want to be seen with you, and I'm not even a spy."
The dreadful brothers looked up with unexpected happiness. They smiled on Julie crookedly from the corners of their mouths.
"Oh, I'm so glad you said that," Cecil said. "We were afraid we were beginning to lose our looks. Do you think we're really vile? You're not just saying that?"
"I think you're perfectly horrible," Julie said with a feeling of delusion. "And I mean every word of it."
"You're wonderful to say that," Cecil drooled unattractively. He reached inside his coat and drew out a soiled piece of paper. "Would you like the secret to the atom bomb? I know it's kind of old stuff, but maybe you'd get a kick out of just having it to show your friends. We've had it for years now, only no one would take it from us; they wouldn't believe it was real. Take it as a token of our appreciation."
Julie backed sharply away. "No, thank you."
"We've stolen all kinds of plans and formulas and things," Cecil said. "Even secret recipes. But everyone acts like you do; they won't let us give them a thing. Our room is filled with secret papers. We could overthrow any government in the world just like that, if someone would just take us seriously."
"That's too bad," Julie said.
"The trouble is we've got no reputation; we've never done anything terrible enough to get a break."
"Yeah," Gerald slurred. "That's the trouble. But we'll make it yet. We'll do something perfectly monstrous one of these days and then we'll be in. We've got ambition and talent."
"I'm sure you have," Julie said.
"You're very nice to encourage us like this," Cecil said. "And we won't let you down either. We're very good at our trade. Would you like to see us skulk?"
"Skulk?" Julie said. "How do you mean?"
"Oh, just skulk. You know, slither and sneak around and things like that." He turned to Gerald. "Let's show her, huh?"
"All right!" Gerald said. "I'm ready."
"Now wait...!" Julie began, but before she could say anything more the two had disappeared into the shadows, and suddenly the hallway and the room behind her were filled with strange furtive scurrying sounds. As she turned to look behind her in the study, she saw one of the frightful brothers dart soundlessly from beneath the desk and disappear behind the drapes at the window. The other peered at her momentarily from behind a chair. They moved around the room with a rapidity and stealth that was maddening. They were everywhere.
"Stop that!" Julie cried. "For heavens sake, stop it!"
Instantly the two brothers returned before her, grinning breathlessly.
"Isn't it sinister?" Cecil asked. "Doesn't it just make your spine crawl?"
"I think mine has already crawled," Julie said. "I wouldn't be surprised to see it scuttling out the door under its own power at this very moment."
"We could skulk all day and never get tired." He held out a sheaf of papers. "I got these out of the desk."
Julie took the papers timidly. "Don't you think you ought to spy on the gentlemen down in the basement now?" she suggested. "They're probably wondering what's keeping you."
"That's right," Gerald said. "Well, we'll sneak along now. It's too bad we haven't more time. We'd show you how we lurk. Everyone says we're the best lurkers in the business."
And suddenly the two were gone, faded into the shadows. Shaking her head, Julie turned back to the study to replace the papers in the desk. Then she stopped as a sharp scream of terror came from the kitchen; the awful brothers had evidently discovered Marie.
Julie was just returning from the desk when the telephone rang. Without waiting for Marie, who was probably in no condition to talk at the moment anyway, she continued to the hallway and answered it herself.
"Mrs. Pillsworth?" a male voice inquired heavily. "This is the police."
"Police?" Julie said. Her first thought turned instantly toward Marc. "My husband! Has something happened to Marc?"
"I'll say, lady," the voice replied. "He's been arrested."
"Arrested? What for?"
"Well, I don't know how to tell you, lady. It sounds silly, and you ain't going to believe it, but he was run in for attacking a statue."
"Attacking a statue!"
"That's what the description says. That an' a lot more that I can't repeat on the telephone. It seems like him and this little redheaded hell-cat...."
"Oh!" Julie broke in frigidly. "So she's mixed up in it, is she!"
Then suddenly the look of anger faded from Julie's face and became one of pure astonishment. As she had been talking, her attention had been drawn to the living room doorway by a movement there. Now, her eyes wide, she stared at a bottle suspended in thin air. Even as she watched, it moved a bit, tilted inquisitively, almost as though it were eavesdropping.
Julie closed her eyes tightly and turned away. She had to get a grip on herself before her nerves gave way completely. She tightened her hold on the telephone.
"You tell my husband," she said, "that he can rot in jail for all I care. I'm going to Reno."
She hung up, passed a trembling hand over her forehead. For a long moment she stood perfectly still. Then, slowly, she turned and forced herself to look at the doorway. As she stared, her face draining white, the bottle tilted smartly and emptied the slight remains of its contents into thin air. There was a moment of electric silence, then the hallway resounded from end to end with the rumblings of an unrestrained burp.
With a smothered cry, Julie sank limply to the floor....
CHAPTER VI
"Oh, my word!" the judge said, lifting haunted eyes from the report. "Do you mean this Pillsworth fellow actually did all that to a statue? Before witnesses? It fairly makes my hair stand on end."
"He did that and more," the prosecuting attorney said. "Pillsworth is no ordinary man."
"Either that," the judge said, "or that statue is no ordinary statue. Where is this fellow? I can hardly wait to get a look at him."
"No, Your Honor," the attorney said. "I didn't mean that. Actually, nothing happened to the statue."
"Put up a good fight, did she? Good for her."
"What I mean to say," the attorney went on patiently, "is that the statue is perfectly all right."
"Stout girl," the judge nodded. "I give that statue real credit. There aren't many women, stone or otherwise, who could go through a siege like that and come out on the right side of things. That statue has got guts. If she were here now it would give me great pleasure to shake that statue's hand."
The attorney cleared his throat dryly. "Can't we drop the statue, Your Honor?" he suggested.
"After everything else she's been through!" the judge exclaimed. He narrowed his eyes indignantly on the attorney. "Really, sir, do you think that's the human thing to do?"
"I don't mean drop her literally," the attorney protested. "I mean couldn't we just sort of lay her aside for a bit? What I'm getting at is...."
"I know perfectly well what you're getting at," the judge broke in hotly. "You can just forget it. I'm beginning to wonder if you're any better than this Pillsworth fellow."
"That's what I wanted to tell you about," the attorney said quickly. "Pillsworth claims he had to grab hold of the statue to keep from floating away into space. He says he's lighter than air."