Chapter VIII

Marc braked the convertible to a stop at the signal and glanced worriedly in the rear-view mirror.

"They're still there," he said.

Toffee swung about in the seat and stared without subterfuge at the black sedan and it's occupants.

"It's those filthy twins," she said. "Even their car looks subversive."

Marc turned his attention again to the mirror. "They may be with the government," he said. "They've probably been assigned to watch us." He shrugged a dismissal. "Anyway, they're the least of my worries."

He released the brake and started forward again on the light. He did not mention the greatest and most immediate of his worries; an overwhelming attack of weariness had come over him in the last few minutes and it was alarmingly reminiscent of the one he'd suffered yesterday just before he'd begun to float. If he was about to become buoyant again he wanted desperately to reach home and Julie before it happened. He narrowed his eyes on the blur of the traffic ahead and tightened his grip on the wheel. He knew as he did it, however, that he was never going to make it.

Marc managed the next block without incident, and the next, but in the middle of the third, he swung the car sharply to the curb and brought it to a quick stop. In the next instant, just as he switched off the ignition, his head slumped heavily to the steering wheel. It happened so suddenly that he didn't notice the irony of his location; he had parked almost exactly in front of the Wynant. Neither did he see the black sedan pull up behind.

Toffee swung quickly toward him and gripped his shoulder. "Marc!" she called, shaking him. "What's wrong?"

There was a moment of tense silence and then, just as before, Marc revived as quickly as he had succumbed. He lifted his head from the wheel, and looked dazedly around.

"What happened?" he asked.

But Toffee was not concerned with the events of the past. "Oh, golly!" she wailed. "Look! There you go again!"

Marc glanced quickly down at the seat and suffered a thrill of horror. Toffee had spoken the truth; indeed, he was going again with all anchors cast off. He had already risen, still in a sitting position, to such a height that his knees were resting snugly against the steering wheel.

"Grab me!" he yelled. "Pull me down!"

"I am grabbing you!" Toffee cried, renewing her efforts on his shoulder. "Hang on to something!"

Marc bent forward and took hold of the wheel. The action threw him into a curious doubled-up position, so that he seemed to have braced himself against the device with his knees so that he might pull at it with both hands. To the casual passerby on the sidewalk it presented a rather intriguing problem in logic. A pair of shop-girls turned away from a window, started away, then stopped to observe the activity in the convertible with baffled interest.

"Why do you suppose he's so anxious to get that wheel off?" one asked, turning to the other.

"I can't imagine," the second said thoughtfully. "He seems terribly mad about something, though. I pity his girl friend."

"I should say. I wouldn't go out with a fellow with that kind of temper for a million dollars."

* * * * *

Meanwhile the state of affairs in the convertible was swiftly becoming crucial. Marc was beginning to realize that the upward pull on his body was even stronger than before.

"Don't let me go!" he told Toffee. "Out here, it'll be the end of me!"

Then suddenly both he and Toffee looked around as a cough of expectancy issued ominously from the back seat. Before their apprehensive eyes a heavy flashlight swiftly raised itself from the floor of the car and darted menacingly forward. A chuckle of malevolent intent sullied the charged silence in the car.

"Go away!" Marc yelled. "Beat it, you homicidal haunt! George!"

But the flashlight continued forward, swung upward over Marc's clutching hands, and poised itself for a smashing blow.

"No!" Marc yelled. "No!"

Then, as the flashlight started swiftly downward, Marc closed his eyes and let go. Instantly, he popped upward out of the car and continued going. The flashlight shattered against the wheel and dropped dully to the floor. George promptly went about the business of materializing himself at Toffee's side. No sooner, however, did his face appear than Toffee dealt it a stinging blow.

"You low-living spook!" she grated. "I ought to scramble your ectoplasm for you!"

George blinked at her woundedly. "Why do you always blame me?" he asked. "I'm only trying to do my job. You're being a terrible sport about all this."

"And I'm going to get worse," Toffee said hotly. She glanced frightenedly after Marc who had already risen beyond the elegance of the Wynant canopy and was closing in rapidly on the second floor.

"He'll never stop!" she cried. "He'll go up into space and explode!"

The crowd, gathering quickly about the convertible, watched Marc's ascent with stunned silence. In back of the convertible, the door of the black sedan swung open and the Blemishes, like a pair of soiled moles, arrived on the sidewalk. They forced their way to the front of the crowd.

As the brothers looked upward, their unlovely faces, as nearly as they ever would, expressed true anxiety.

Above, Marc passed the second floor and rose swiftly to the third. He seemed to be gathering momentum on his upward journey. The fourth floor drifted by. His thoughts churned. He wanted to scream, but somehow there wasn't time. And then, miraculously, he was caught in a strong draft of wind, and thrown roughly toward the face of the building. He reached out frantically, grabbing, clutching for something to hang on to. And then his hand slapped against a window ledge, caught, and held.

Marc brought his other hand down to the ledge, found a hold and clung. He drew in a breath of relief and his whole body throbbed with the beat of his heart. As he hung there, his body continued upward, however, upending him crazily against the wall of the hotel.

Down on the sidewalk, the Blemishes were instantly inspired to action.

"Come on!" they yelled. "Let's fish him in!"

Toffee looked at the two men. She was in no mood or position to question any source of aid at the moment, no matter how questionable it appeared. She turned to George with cool hostility.

"You make a move out of this car," she threatened, "and you'll be only a ghost of a ghost when I get through with you." Then, swinging the car door open, she joined the dark Blemishes in a streaking dash toward the entrance of the hotel.

* * * * *

On the fifth floor of the Wynant, Mrs. Hunter Reynolds sat rigidly in her bathtub and stared with fixed horror at the face which had just appeared upside down at her bathroom window. An old belle of the old South, Mrs. Hunter Reynolds had ventured into the North expecting only the worst. Now the worst had happened.

The shaken lady gripped the sides of her tub and tried hard to prevent herself from sinking to a watery grave. She closed her eyes and reasoned sternly with herself; it was all a trick of the imagination; even a damnyankee head couldn't do the disgraceful thing this crazy head was doing. And then her eyes flew wildly open as the room suddenly dinned with a shouted plea for help.

At this point Mrs. Hunter Reynolds had a plea of her own to shout. "God in heaven, sir!" she said, trying desperately to maintain some last shred of dignity now that all decency was gone. "God in heaven, stop invadin' my privacy this way. I ask it in the name of the South."

"Help me!" Marc panted. "Come pull me in!"

Mrs. Hunter Reynolds started in her tub. "You're speakin' to a lady, sir!" she gasped. "Please go away. My water's gettin' cold."

"I can't help your water," Marc said unhappily.

"Sir!" the southern lady cried. "I'm not askin' you to help my water. I'm askin' you to leave my water entirely alone."

"Delighted," Marc wheezed. "I wouldn't touch your water with a ten foot thermometer, I'll close my eyes if you'll just give me a hand."

"If I give you a hand, sir," Mrs. Hunter Reynolds said coolly, "it will be across your insultin' damnyankee mouth. If you don't leave instantly I'll call my husband, the Colonel."

"For heaven's sake, call him!" Marc implored. "He can help me."

"It's more likely he'll whip you within an inch of your life." Mrs. Hunter Reynolds said stoutly. Swirling about in her suds, she faced the doorway, prepared to scream, then turned back to Marc.

"First, sir," she said. "Would you do me the pleasure of tellin' me if you are a whole damnyankee or only a damnyankee head?"

"I'm a whole damn ... I'm whole," Marc said.

"Thank you, sir," Mrs. Hunter Reynolds said with a slight bow. Then she opened her mouth wide and screamed with unbelievable feeling and vigor.

"Hunter!" she shrieked. "Hunter! There's a whole damnyankee invadin' my privacy!"

Even before she had stopped screaming the door to the bathroom burst open and Col. Hunter Reynolds charged into view, obviously prepared to defend southern chivalry to the end, if necessary. Needing only a julep in his hand to complete the picture, he was a fair caricature of all southern colonels.

"Damnyankee, did you say!" he thundered.

"There!" his wife said, agitating her bath water. She pointed dramatically to the window.

"Gad!" the Colonel snorted. "That's the damndest damnyankee I've ever seen. He's upside down, isn't he? Gave me quite a turn for a second there. But it looks like he's had quite a turn himself." The Colonel chuckled foolishly at his own pleasantry.

"I'm the one who's had the turn!" his wife snapped. "Stop that silly gigglin' and titterin', you old fool, and do something."

The Colonel considered. "Yes, yes," he murmured. "I suppose I'll have to shoot the dog; there isn't enough of him to flog."

"My water's getting cool," Mrs. Hunter Reynolds mentioned fretfully.

"Good," the Colonel said absently. "Good. Keep it that way." He started from the room.

"Help!" Marc yelled.

The Colonel whirled about at the doorway.

"Not a word out of you, sir!" he said tartly. "Not a word!"

* * * * *

He left the room and almost instantly was back bearing a pair of ominous bone-handled dueling pistols. These he cocked carefully and aimed in Marc's general direction.

"Make your peace, sir," he said. He turned to his wife. "Close your eyes so you won't see this."

"No!" Marc yelled.

"Just a moment, dear," Mrs. Hunter Reynolds interrupted. "I don't like to interfere in the affairs of menfolk, you know that, dear, but don't you think we ought to keep in mind that we still have southern blood in our veins even if we are in the North?"

The Colonel observed his wife scowlingly. "How do you mean?" he asked.

"It isn't southern courtesy to shoot a man when he's a sittin' target."

The Colonel turned it over in his mind. "You're quite right, dear," he said finally. He turned to Marc. "Sir, would you mind movin' about a bit out there so I can shoot you in honor?"

"I can't!" Marc gasped. His arms were so tired, and his head so thick with blood, that he didn't care much at this point whether he was about to be shot or not. "Shoot me in cold blood," he said. "To hell with your honor."

The Colonel turned questioningly to his wife. "Should I?" he asked. "You heard what he said about my honor."

Mrs. Hunter Reynolds was hesitant. "Suppose the news got out around back home?" she said. "Folks would say you weren't a real southern gentleman anymore. They'd say you'd been tainted by the North. You'd never be able to hold up a julep in public again."

"For the love of heaven!" Marc moaned. "Either help me or shoot me, only make it snappy."

"Better not risk it," the Colonel decided. "I've got to have a moving target."

The bathroom became quiet with the heavy stillness of impasse. Then there was a ripple from the bathtub as Mrs. Hunter Reynolds brightened.

"I know!" she cried. "If the target can't move, why don't you? Wouldn't it be all right that way? You could rush about a bit and when you've got up your speed turn and shoot him."

The Colonel was silent for a minute, seeming to picture his wife's suggestion in his mind. Finally he nodded. He turned to Marc.

"Is it all right with you, damnyankee?" he asked.

"Anything's all right with me," Marc said hopelessly. "Go ahead. I don't even give a damn anymore."

The scene that followed established a new and fascinating high in sheer insanity. Girding his rusty loins against the first physical effort they had been forced to in years, the Colonel busily began to cavort about the room like a bloated rhino. Clumsily loping through an obstacle course of plumbing appliances, the old boy found it rough going at best. As for the Colonel's lady, she languished calmly in her cooling tub, soaped her arms, and watched her laboring husband with nodding approval. Marc, even beyond the point of mere resignation, closed his eyes and waited.

"Well," the Colonel wheezed, rushing once more to the end of the room and starting back again, "this is it!" As he ran, he trained the pistols loosely in Marc's direction. "Here I come! Ready ... aim...!"

It was at this climactic point in the bathroom drama that the door burst open and Toffee, closely followed by the two Blemishes, rushed into view.

"Stop!" Toffee screamed.

In mid-gallop, the Colonel turned sharply to observe the intruders, tripped over a clothes hamper, and descended to the floor in a deafening roar of gunfire.

As a cloud of smoke billowed up around the gallant man from the South, Mrs. Hunter Reynolds turned, looked briefly at Toffee and the Blemish brothers and sank into the depths of her bath with only a small gurgle to mark her departure.

* * * * *

Toffee ran to the window, motioning the brothers to follow. She emerged through the rising screen of smoke just in time to see Marc's fingers, white with tension, slip from the sill and disappear out of view.

"He's gone!" she screamed. "He's gone!"

The Blemishes crowded beside her at the window and leaned forward. They were just in time to catch the last glimpse of Marc floating serenely out of sight beyond the rim of the building as they watched.

"Come on!" Toffee yelled. "Up to the roof!"

"What for?" Gerald Blemish said bitterly. "He's gone, now."

"Well, at least we can wave goodbye," Toffee said. She started rapidly toward the door.

"My!" Cecil Blemish said, picking his way carefully over the prone figure of the Colonel. "Look at all the water in here. The old gaffer got the water pipes, two out of two."

It was barely seconds later when the skylight door at the top of the hotel flew open and Toffee and the matching Blemishes ran out onto the roof. They scanned the distant sky as they moved.

"He's gone!" Toffee cried despairingly. "He's clear out of sight!"

The brothers stopped and looked at each other without hope.

"Well," Cecil muttered. "There goes everything."

Then suddenly the trio straightened as a small voice called Toffee's name. It might have come from anywhere and it might have been any voice, it was so weak. Toffee whirled about, and instantly her gaze darted to the flag-pole at the other end of the roof. There, like a flag unfurled, Marc was clinging to the top ornament for dear life.

"Marc!" Toffee screamed and ran to the pole. "Grab the rope and I'll pull you down!"

Cautiously, Marc took hold of the ropes, first one hand, then the other.

"Hold on tight!" Toffee cautioned and slowly began lowering him toward the roof. As she did so she glanced around at the twins. The two, in what seemed a rather pretty but confused tribute, were holding their hats stiffly over their hearts.

Toffee turned back to the pole, renewed her efforts, and brought Marc safely to ground. Then as he clung to the pole for security, she removed a couple of metal weights from the ropes and slipped them into the pockets of his jacket. Briefly, she kissed him on the forehead.

"You damned floater!" she breathed with relief and affection.

Gingerly, Marc released his hold on the pole and smilingly discovered that he was again stationary. With Toffee's help, he made his way to where the twins were standing, their hats still clasped to their chests.

"Retreat's over," Toffee said. "You can put the lids back on."

In unison the twins swung their hats up to their heads and held out the revolvers they had been holding under them.

"Get 'em up!" they snarled in chorus. "You're coming with us."