Part 5

"Hussy!" the little woman screamed. "Runnin' around with fiends! You're just as bad as the company you keep. Don't you dast open your painted mouth to me!"

Somehow, Marc, by this time, had managed to stagger to his feet. Seeing Toffee's predicament, he started toward her, but was cut off by his howling tormentors. Wildly, he swung about in the opposite direction. Then he stopped short. For an instant his gaze had swept over the open door leading onto the veranda. Coming up the steps, and losing no time about it, were Julie and Dr. Polk.

Marc whirled back toward the door. "Julie," he screamed.

Julie glanced frightenedly toward the scene of chaos. But Marc never saw her face, for at that same moment a warming dish, complete with heavy metal cover, came down thunderously over his head. Poached eggs were streaming into his eyes as he pitched toward the floor, but he wasn't aware of them. Everything had already gone pitch black.

The little lady in lavender started forward a bit as the crutch gave under her hand and jolted against the wall. She stared quizzically at the wall. Then, dropping the crutch, she removed her glasses and wiped them vigorously with a delicate lace handkerchief. Replacing the glasses carefully, she stared at the wall again.

"Well, I'll be blessed," she murmured. "I could have sworn I had that little harpy all the time."

Toffee had vanished into thin air.

* * * * *

A tiny bubble of awareness rose through the blackness of Marc's mind, reached the surface and exploded with a flash of light. It was immediately followed by another ... then two ... and three ... and a score. Marc stirred and opened his eyes. His vision was pulsing and dim. Objects leaped into view, then disappeared. A chair, a table, a door, a window with the blind mostly drawn. His hands fell against softness and he knew he was lying on a bed. He rolled over. The motion must have had a clearing effect on his head, for the objects were suddenly more distinct and remained in focus longer. A seated figure swam into view very close by. For a moment it hovered over him, then faded, vanished, reappeared and remained. It was Dr. Polk.

The doctor's precise features arranged themselves into a sparse smile. "Well, my boy," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"I ... I don't know," Marc faltered. "How did you find me here?"

"We gave the police the license number on your car as soon as you ran off yesterday," the doctor answered. "They didn't have much trouble locating you." He smiled sadly. "You've been a rather naughty boy. They tell me you've taken to beating old ladies."

"No," Marc murmured. "A mistake ... it was a mistake."

"Yes, yes," the doctor patronized. "But we must face things as they really are, my boy. It's the only way out, you know. Something has upset you badly, but everything can be set right again if we can get to the root of the trouble. You must be pronounced well again, you know, if you're to go to court against Mrs. Pillsworth. We'll have to re-establish your legal status."

"What!" Marc didn't know where the strength came from but he was suddenly sitting up. "Get out of here! I'll stay nutty the rest of my life if that's the way the wind is blowing." He fell back, exhausted, but he was beginning to feel better. Stronger, anyway.

"Now, you must be reasonable," the doctor went on, undisturbed. "You wouldn't want to be put away in an institution, would you?"

Marc shook his head. It was the truth; he wouldn't.

"Then you must help me to help you. First of all, I want you to go back in memory to your childhood, and tell me anything, everything that comes to mind. Just close your eyes and think back. Start with your earliest memory."

Marc glared at the doctor for a moment, then resignedly closed his eyes. There was a long period of silence. Finally, he said, "The first I remember is the night I was born."

"What!" the doctor's voice was excited.

"Yes. I recall that someone gave me a pair of soft blue booties."

"Yes, go on!"

"I used them," Marc said flatly, "to beat the doctor's brains out." He opened his eyes and boosted himself forward. "How's that for a memory?"

But the doctor wasn't listening. In fact, he wasn't even looking at Marc. Instead, his gaze was fastened in horrified wonder on the bureau across the room. A shudder crept through his thin body, and he turned away, one slender hand pressed firmly to his eyes.

The reason for the doctor's distress was instantly apparent; Toffee had materialized. Seated pertly atop the bureau, one perfect leg crossed seductively over the other, she was truly a vision from another world. There was something statuesque and unnatural in her pose. But when Marc looked at her, she came momentarily to life. Quickly, she raised one tapering finger to her lips, then shook her head. That was all. Immediately, she resumed the mannikin pose and held it rigidly. Marc nodded and slumped back on the bed.

"Well, doc," he said brightly, "what do you think of my childhood?"

* * * * *

The doctor drew his hand away from his eyes and stared at Marc stupidly: "Your childhood?" he asked bemusedly. "I ... I ... think ..." He glanced quickly over his shoulder at the bureau and shuddered again. "Tell ... tell me," he faltered. "What do you see on that bureau over there?"

With elaborate deliberation, Marc raised himself and squinted at the bureau. "A Gideon bible," he said pleasantly. "That's all I see."

The doctor's face turned ash grey. "Been working too hard," he muttered. "Got to ... to ... to take a rest." He turned misery-ridden eyes on Marc. "You'll have to excuse me. We will continue ... later ... maybe."

He got unsteadily to his feet and moved slowly toward the door. Reaching it, he stretched his hand toward the knob, then withdrew it. Clearly, the good doctor was struggling against some inner conflict. Suddenly, with a determined lift of his chin, he turned and gazed squarely at the bureau. It was a grave mistake.

It wasn't so much that Toffee met the doctor's gaze unblinkingly. The real damage was done when she smiled and winked at him. That was too much. With a cry of purest despair, the doctor pivoted, threw open the door and bolted into the hall. A second later his footsteps echoed on the stairs with machinegun rapidity.

Marc swung himself off the bed and impulsively crossed to Toffee and kissed her on the cheek. "You were wonderful," he said. "You certainly stewed his prunes."

Toffee leaned back and giggled. "You only say that," she murmured, "just because I'm gorgeous. I wonder if Julie ever found...."

"Julie!" Marc's eyes were panic-stricken.

Perhaps Julie was a bit high tempered at times, but she was still his wife. It seemed, now, that he had been caught in a raging flood of madness and Julie was the rock of reality to which he must cling at all costs. Whirling away from Toffee, he raced toward the door.

When Marc reached the foyer of the lodge, he was surprised to find it completely deserted, except for the little manager. Astonishingly, at the sight of Marc, the fellow clasped his hands ecstatically before him and ran to meet him. "Oh, Mr. Pillsworth!" he cried. "You don't know what you've done! You just simply don't _know_! You've absolutely rejuvenated my guests with that little riot of yours. They all said they didn't know when they felt so young. They've all gone out in the woods for a picnic ... with beer! They took up a collection for the damage in the dining room, and...."

Marc wasn't listening. "Where's my wife?" he asked. "Where's Julie?"

"The pretty blonde young lady?" the manager asked.

"Yes, yes. Where is she?"

"Out on the veranda, I believe. Down at the far end, around the corner. Poor dear, she was crying terribly when she went out."

Marc turned and darted for the door. Then he stopped abruptly. A large hand had fallen over his arm and was holding him back. He looked up to see Pete standing beside him.

"Let go," he said impatiently, "I've got to find my...."

"Never mind," Pete said. "You just come along with me. Let's get it over with, huh? Marge and me, we want to get outa here."

"Get what over with? What are you talking about?"

"You know. Our deal."

"What deal? Say, what is this all about, anyway?"

"You know. The deal you said I wasn't to let you back out on. Remember?"

* * * * *

Subsequent development had completely banished the scene at the breakfast table from Marc's mind. "No. I don't remember any deal." He tried to pull away, but the big man held him firmly.

"Oh, come now, Mr. Pillsworth. Remember at breakfast when you told me how you come up here to commit suicide 'cause your wife is leavin' you? Only you didn't have the nerve? Remember how you give me two C's to bump you off? And I wasn't to let you back out no matter what you said? And the note you give me, sayin' how you was knockin' yourself off over a busted heart, so's Marge and me, we'd be in the clear on doin' the job? Remember?"

"I've been framed," Marc said desperately, recalling the note he'd seen George give to Pete. "That was George you made the deal with. He wants me out of the way. You weren't talking to me. You were talking to George!"

Pete started to laugh. "That's pretty funny, Mr. Pillsworth!" he roared. "George, the talkin' dog, done it, eh? That's real good. I'll have to tell Marge." His hand moved close to Marc's side. It was holding a gun. "You paid me for a job, Mr. Pillsworth, and you got a job comin'. It wouldn't be honest otherwise. And I ain't goin' to let you talk me outa it, neither. Aren't you glad?" He gave the gun an extra shove. "I'd rather not do it right here. Let's go outside. Whaddaya say?"

As Pete shoved him gently but firmly toward the door, Marc peered frantically around the room. "George!" he called. "George! Oh, George, for the love of Mike!"

Behind him, Pete's laugh boomed out in a salvo of noisy mirth. "You're a card, Mr. Pillsworth!" he howled. "You sure are a card. When it comes time for me to cash in my chips, I hope I'll have the nerve to crack jokes like that."

All the way up the trail to the brink of the cliff, Marc had continued to call vainly for George, and the joke, as far as Pete was concerned, was beginning to wear thin.

"Can't you stop that?" Pete asked. "It kinda gets on a guy's nerves after a while. If it means so much to you to have that dog around, why don't you just whistle?"

"I don't feel like whistling," Marc said irritably. "I mean George isn't a dog. He's ... a ..." He glanced over the edge of the cliff, and his legs suddenly turned to sawdust. Yards and yards of nothing at all stretched out endlessly downward. He turned pleadingly to Pete. "Now, listen to reason, Pete. I don't want to commit suicide. That was all a mistake...."

"You told me not to listen when you started talkin' like that," Pete said doggedly. "I gotta do the honest thing, Mr. Pillsworth. I gotta bump you off."

"Do you _have_ to be so honest?" Marc asked desperately. "Don't you want to get ahead in your chosen profession? Haven't you any ambition at all? A good crook would automatically go back on his word, just as a matter of principle. Think of your future, Pete. Where's Marge? She'll tell you."

Pete shook his head. "Marge is takin' it easy back at the lodge. She says we're goin' straight, and I'm to do exactly like you said." He stepped back and motioned toward the edge of the cliff with his gun. "Now, why don't you save us both a lot of trouble and just step off that there cliff? That way, I won't have to shoot you off. I'm goin' to count three, and if you ain't jumped yet, I'll shoot."

"No, Pete!" Marc cried. "No! You don't understan...."

"One."

Pete took a step forward and Marc edged back a little. He didn't dare look behind him. The edge of the cliff was only inches away.

"Two."

Pete advanced again, and Marc nervously sidled to the left. Then a look of hopelessness swept over his face. Closing his eyes, he turned and faced the cliff. Waiting for the final, fatal number, his body was tense as a steel spring.

* * * * *

Pete raised his gun level with Marc's back and opened his mouth, but neither the gun nor the mouth spoke. Julie, a piece of paper clutched tightly in her hand, had suddenly appeared on the clearing at the top of the cliff. At the first glimpse of Marc, poised on the edge of the cliff, she stopped short, her lovely tear-stained face suddenly twisting with horror. Then she closed her eyes and screamed with all her might.

As the noise stabbed through the mountain air, Marc started as though he'd been kicked. Then, clutching his middle in a gesture of mortal pain, he teetered drunkenly on the brink a moment and ... plunged downward.

Footsteps sounded on the trail, and Dr. Polk, breaking through the clearing, ran breathlessly toward Julie. Reaching her, he placed an enquiring hand on her arm. Julie instantly opened her eyes, stared at the empty space where Marc had been and screamed again. She started to run forward, but the doctor caught her and held her back. She whirled angrily toward Pete.

"Why did you let him do it?" she screamed. "You just stood there!"

Slipping his gun into his pocket, Pete stared at her stupidly. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "Seems like he just wanted to do it."

With a gesture of hopelessness, Julie turned back to the doctor and buried her face in his shoulder. "It was all my fault," she sobbed. "I drove him to it. And he was sick, too!"

"Julie!"

The voice was from beyond the cliff. Also, it seemed to come from beyond the grave. There was a distant other-world quality about it.

"Marc!" Julie broke away from the doctor and ran swiftly to the edge of the cliff. Kneeling, she peered anxiously over the side. Not more than three yards below, spread eagle over the face of a sloping rock ledge, was Marc. He was clinging tenaciously to a small bush that had grown into the side of the cliff, and his feet were braced securely against the jagged protruding edge of the ledge. Though he could probably have remained there for days without any real danger, his upturned face was filled with undiluted terror.

"Julie," he cried weakly. "For the love of heaven, get me out of here. I've been shot."

After Dr. Polk and Pete, with the babbling moral support of Julie, had managed to haul Marc back over the edge of the cliff and convince him that he was not riddled with bullets, they left him lying on the ground. Julie knelt beside him and took him in her arms. Pete, after a hasty glance at his resurrected victim, hastily disappeared in the direction of the trail. Probably the apprentice gunman was worried lest Marc demand a refund of the two hundred dollars on the grounds that his services had been incompletely rendered. Dr. Polk, apparently somewhat recovered from his disquieting encounter with Toffee, stood by, observing Marc with unashamed directness.

"It's all right," Julie cooed comfortingly. "Everything is going to be all right ... even if you are crazy. I'll stick by you, darling. You'll have the loveliest padded cell that money can buy. I'll take care of you." She held him a little way out from her. "You mustn't ever do anything like this again. When I found that note in your room, I nearly went mad myself."

"Could ... could I see the note?" Marc asked weakly.

* * * * *

Julie reached into her pocket and held up a crumpled piece of paper. Her hand had perspired and smeared the writing until it was completely illegible, but there was no doubt that the handwriting was Marc's ... or an exact duplicate.

"But we don't want to see any more of that hateful thing," Julie said. She crushed the paper into a ball and hurled it over the edge of the cliff. "There, now, that's all over, that silly business about you killing yourself." She drew Marc closer to her.

Over Julie's shoulder, Marc glanced uneasily at the doctor. It seemed this was not quite the time for an observer. But the doctor was no longer interested in the reconciliation. Instead, his gaze was riveted on the trail. Marc's eyes automatically followed the doctor's, and the hair at the back of his neck began to bristle. Toffee, her filmy skirts held well above her knees, was running toward the clearing as fast as her decorative legs could carry her. Marc stiffened in Julie's arms.

"What is it, dear?" Julie asked.

"No ... nothing," Marc said faintly. Toffee, by appearing just at this moment, could easily set matters back to where they were in the beginning. Something had to be done ... quick! Marc's hand started forward in a gesture of warning, but in moving upward from the ground, it brushed lightly against a rock. And there it stopped.

As Marc's hand closed over the rock, his eyes clouded with pain. It was the only effective way to get rid of Toffee quickly. It had to be done. His hand moved upward, poised the rock squarely over his head, then quickly released it. Whack! It was a case of pinpoint bombing. Marc slumped in Julie's arms.

"Oh, dear," Julie murmured concernedly. "He's passed out again." She started to massage Marc's wrists. Then, noticing the trickle of blood over his left eyebrow, she added another; "Oh, dear!"

"Oh, Lord!" Dr. Polk breathed, and his voice was far more earnest than Julie's. Staring at the place where Toffee had been, he seemed almost in danger of bolting over the face of the cliff in a fit of terror. "She's gone!" he cried. "She just melted into nothing!" Avoiding the spot where Toffee had last stood, he edged cautiously toward the trail, and reaching it, broke into a dead run toward the lodge. He ran like a man possessed.

Not conscious of the doctor's odd behavior, Julie gazed softly into Marc's unconscious face. "I'll take care of you," she whispered. And slowly she lowered her lips to his.

* * * * *

But in the tranquil valley of his own mind, Marc was concerned with other lips ... the very singular lips of Toffee. One arm still around his neck, Toffee leaned back and smiled.

"Another day," she sighed happily, "another dilemma. You do live such a rapturous life. Never a sane moment."

"It has never occurred to you," Marc said dryly, "that you contribute somewhat to that insanity yourself?"

"Me?" Toffee asked, wide-eyed. "How can you say a thing like that? I'm always the one that has to straighten everything out."

"I suppose you were on your way to straighten things out when you ran out on the cliff. If Julie had seen you she'd have tossed me over the brink again."

"I was on my way to save your wretched life," Toffee replied haughtily. "I cornered Marge back at the lodge and made her tell me the whole story. She thought you were already dead, but I knew you weren't. If I still existed, you did too. So I ran up there to stop Pete from killing you. Now I get blamed."

Marc took her hand in his. "You were wonderful," he said sincerely.

"You bet I was," Toffee said self-righteously. "It was that fiend, George, that caused all the trouble."

Marc had almost forgotten the ghost in the excitement of the last half hour. "That demon! First I couldn't get rid of him, then when I wanted him, he wasn't anywhere."

"Of course not. George went back to ... well, wherever he came from. Remember how he disappeared at the table?" Marc nodded. "Well, George did his swan song right there."

"What!"

"Sure. Because of that fortuneteller," Toffee explained. "It was the simplest thing in the world. She said it was written in your hand that you would live a long time. Well, George believed her. And if you were going to live, he had to get going. That's the rules, and he's a stickler for the rules. And it's only natural that George believes in fortunetellers. He's very superstitious, you know. After all, he's a ghost, himself, isn't he?"

"I see," Marc murmured wonderingly. "Then George is gone for good."

Toffee nodded and began to laugh. "You remember how that jug lurched about when George disappeared?"

"Uh-huh. What's so funny about that?"

"George," Toffee giggled in a fit of hilarity, "tried to take it with him."

Marc started to laugh too, then stopped. The earth was moving away from under him. Either that, or he was rising lightly in the air. Whichever it was, only he, himself, was affected by the phenomenon, for Toffee remained on the grassy knoll. He reached down toward her, but she only smiled up at him.

"It's all over," she called. "Goodbye. It's been lovely being with you again. Don't forget me."

Marc tried to force himself downward, but he couldn't. His will was too weak against the force that was lifting him. When he stopped trying, he shot upward all the faster. Moving away into the distance, he looked regretfully back at Toffee, a tiny waving figure, now, in the soft, loveliness of the valley.

"Goodbye!" he called. "Goodbye!"

Then, looking up, he saw the darkness racing down to meet him. He felt a little sad at leaving Toffee and the valley, and yet it was comforting to know that in a few moments he would be back in Julie's arms.

* * * * *

The next morning the sun glinted brightly over the hood of the blue convertible, then flashed against its rear bumper as it left the graveled drive of Sunnygarden Lodge and turned onto the pavement of the highway.

Behind the wheel, Marc, with an impressive-looking bandage over his left eye, glanced uneasily at Julie, who sat rigidly upright in the opposite corner of the seat. Marc wondered how he could reassure her. Probably the truth about Toffee and George would be worse than nothing at all when it came to restoring her confidence. Maybe just some nice, intelligent conversation.

"What ... what happened to that nice fellow, Dr. Polk?" he asked rather stiffly.

"I really don't know," Julie said, careful that her gaze remained on the scenery along the road. "He left without a word early yesterday afternoon."

That took care of that. A heavy tide of silence washed between them and bore the conversational topic of Dr. Polk away, beyond recovery. Marc hummed self-consciously to himself for a moment, then, in desperation, reached toward the car radio and switched it on. Presently, a sonorous voice broke dispiritedly through the silence.

"... in Europe," it said. "And now for the news, here at home. Probably the most provocative story of the day concerns the psychiatrist, Horace D. Polk. It seems that Dr. Polk, in a state of acute agitation, turned himself in for psychiatric treatment at his own clinic late last night. The doctor claims that overwork had caused him to be the victim of hallucinations that take the form of scantily clad women who suddenly appear, wink at him, and vanish into thin air. Before being taken into the care of one of his associates, the doctor told newsmen that his patients would be notified that any diagnosis pronounced by him within the last two months should probably be disregarded. He said that such people would be advised to place themselves in the hands of other, reliable doctors until his recovery. Dr. Grimes, a long-time friend and associate of Dr. Polk, stated that the clinic...."

Marc quickly turned off the radio, pressing his lips tightly together to hold back the mirth that was bubbling inside. He turned cautiously to Julie. She was looking at him now, and the twinkle that always foreshadowed laughter was in her eyes. Then, she edged closer to him, and suddenly they both began to laugh in the same instant.

Marc's laughter rang out, clear and unrestrained. Everything was all right again. He reached an arm around Julie and drew her closer. Yes, sir, everything was perfectly all right.

* * * * *