“WAIT!” Larry cried. He had nothing further to add that would do him any good, but he didn’t want to be shipped off to the Siberian salt mines without raising a finger. “I’ll admit things look incriminating but—”
“Young man,” the colonel said in a dreadful whisper, “I am reaching certain limits in my capacity to endure your presence. I want you to leave my room. I want you to do without opening your mouth again. And in the morning I shall expect you to leave the premises of my home without a second’s delay. In my opinion, you are an addle-pated moron who would bite the hand that fed you, wear any man’s collar, desert a floundering ship™”
“You are mixing up your metaphors slightly, Colonel,” Larry said, in what he hoped was a gaily bantering spirit. He hoped this digression would get the colonel off on a less personal tangent, but he reckoned without the colonel’s military trained, one-track mind.
“And furthermore,” the colonel continued, gathering steam and pressure with each syllable and apparently not even hearing Larry’s diversion, “if you are not out of my sight in five seconds I shall forget my mother’s training and shoot you down like a dog!”
This seemed pretty definite. And Larry had no intention of giving the colonel the pleasure of drilling a few holes through him.
He broke for the door at a fast lope. When his hand hit the knob the colonel was reaching for his gun. Larry jerked open the door and closed it behind him with a relieved sigh.
He walked dejectedly to his own room. The fat was in the fire for good, now. On the morrow he would undoubtedly be thrown as far as the colonel’s retainers were able to pitch him.
He sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette.
Even the knowledge that Pat and Mike were still in the colonel’s room failed to disturb him. So what? he thought bitterly.
There was even a dry, bitter pleasure in speculating on what the little hellions might do next to bedevil the colonel.
“Maybe they’ll put sand in his shaving cream,” he thought.
The prospect brought a wan smile to his lips and he climbed into bed. In despair he went to sleep.
CHAPTER V
THE next morning Larry was aroused from his uneasy sleep by a clamor of voices in the hallway outside his room. For a moment he lay in bed blinking at the ceiling, and then as the memory of the previous night flooded over him he groaned softly.
But his thoughts were distracted from his sorry plight for the moment by the babble and confusion that were audibly evident outside his door.
He got out of bed rather nervously. Maybe, he thought worriedly, the colonel had sent up a crew of strong-arm men to toss him out into the cold. But there was no attempt on the part of anyone to enter his room. Footsteps rushed back and forth outside his door; voices were raised and lowered, but through the discordant din Larry recognized one particular voice that surged over and above the others like the major theme in a symphony.
This predominant voice was unmistakable. Once having heard it the chances were good that a man would recognize it on his death bed.
For it was the voice of Colonel Manners raised in rage and anguish!
Larry listened for a few seconds with a sort of grudging admiration. The old boy really had a set of pipes! And he was surpassing himself this morning.
He wondered what had caused the outburst. For a while he toyed with speculations but finally his curiosity got the better of him and he put on his robe and slippers and headed for the door.
Half-way there he was arrested by the sound of a voice. A jolly voice which said, “You’d better keep away from the colonel for a while.”
Larry stopped in his tracks and then turned slowly.
Seated on his dresser were two small figures surveying him with bright, sparkling eyes. Larry recognized them instantly as Pat and Mike, the incorrigible puppets who had been missing from the booth the previous night.
They were fashioned the same as Tim, with cleverly jointed wooden arms, legs and bodies, but there was an unholy gleam in their button eyes that was lacking in Tim’s.
“What have you little devils been up to?” Larry demanded. “What have you done to the colonel now?”
Pat looked at Mike and a malicious grin split his mischievous features.
“He wants to know what we did to the colonel,” the puppet said to his companion.
Mike grinned too. “Tell him to go and ask the colonel,” Mike said. “And then tell him he’d better duck.”
Larry crossed the room in two quick strides and swept the puppets up in his hands. They struggled and kicked in helpless fury.
Larry glared at them. “I’m through playing around with you boys,” he said grimly. “I’m going to see to it that you behave.”
He jerked open the top drawer of the dresser and dumped them in on top of his shirts. Then he closed the drawer and locked it. He put the key in his pocket.
“That’ll hold you,” he muttered.
He could hear their faint cries from inside the drawer, but he hardened his heart and strode away. Opening the door of his room he stepped out into a scene of wild confusion.
SERVANTS rushed back and forth with tense worried looks stamped on their faces. Larry noticed Dereck Miller pacing nervously in front of the colonel’s door.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Dereck chewed his lip anxiously.
“Hell to pay,” he said tensely, “the old boy’s lost his false teeth.”
“You don’t say,” Larry murmured.
Gloria appeared at that moment from the opposite end of the corridor. She was wearing a silver lace negligee and her bare feet were thrust into tiny silver mules.
“My maid just told me the bad news,” she said breathlessly. “We’ve got to do something.”
From inside the colonel’s room the wild bellowing was reminiscent of the trumpetings of a frustrated bull elephant. There was something terrifying and cosmic about the uproar issuing from the open transom.
Dereck put his hand on Gloria’s arm comfortingly.
“We’ll find them,” he said. His jaw was dramatically tense.
The door was suddenly flung open and the colonel appeared, a wild tragic figure. His hair was flying about his head and sparks of rage were shooting from his eyes.
The sight of Larry acted like a match touched to, gasoline on the colonel. He raised his clenched fists in the air and screamed like a denested eagle.
“This is your work,” he bellowed. “Where are my teeth?”
This appeal lost a bit of effectiveness since the colonel’s lips were writhing about loosely without the support of his store teeth. But the general idea got across.
“I don’t know—” began Larry.
“Get my teeth!” thundered the colonel.
Larry had a pretty good idea of what had happened to the colonel’s teeth. Pat and Mike had obviously copped them during the night. But Larry felt no particular desire to leap to the aid and succor of the colonel. In his opinion the old goat richly deserved whatever bad luck befell him and he was about to voice this sentiment when Gloria took his arm.
“Please,” she whispered, “If you can help him, I’ll be eternally grateful.”
Larry looked at her and his hardhearted resolve melted. With her hair sleep-tumbled about her face she was as lovely as a morning rose.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said.
“Get my teeth, you scoundrel,” bellowed the colonel, hopping from one gouty foot to the other in his rage.
Larry ducked back into his room and opened the drawer in which he had imprisoned the two puppets. He lifted them out paying no attention to their shrill accusing squawks.
“Okay,” he said, when they had exhausted their repertoire of abuse, “we’re through playing games. Where are they?”
“Where are what?” Mike asked surlily.
“Don’t play dumb,” Larry said sharply, “I want the colonel’s teeth. Give!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking abou
t,” Pat mumbled.
“Oh, yes you do,” Larry said grimly. “And you’re going to tell me where they are.”
“Supposing we don’t?” Mike said sullenly.
LARRY picked up his cigarette lighter from the top of the dresser. He flicked on the light and watched the blue-hot flame lick greedily into the air.
The two puppets watched the flame also, and there was a sudden anxiety in their button-like eyes.
“I am not a monster,” Larry said calmly, “but I would have no scruples about giving each of you fellows a hotfoot, if necessary, to find out what I want to know. A hot-foot in your case would probably be fatal, but I can’t help that.”
Mike twisted uneasily in his hand. Pat did likewise.
“Who wants any old false teeth?” Mike said suddenly.
“I don’t,” Pat said promptly.
“Start talking,” Larry said.
“They’re in the top drawer,” Mike said. “Please put out that lighter. It’s giving me heart burn.”
Larry put out the lighter and tossed the puppets back into the drawer beside his shirts. He closed the drawer and locked it. Then he opened the top drawer and the first sight that met his eyes was the colonel’s very large, very white and very false set of teeth.
With them in his hand he returned to the excited group clustered about the colonel’s drawer.
Gloria saw him first. Her eyes lighted when she saw the teeth in his hand.
“Oh, you’re wonderful!” she cried.
The colonel stamped out of his room and when he saw his teeth in Larry’s hand he grabbed them like a wolf snatching meat from a trap.
He fitted them into his mouth and then he swung on Larry. His mouth opened and closed. His face purpled with his efforts at speech.
Finally he gave up.
He pointed toward the door.
“Go!” he hissed. The word seemed to seep up from the soles of his feet and it had collected plenty of venom by the time if passed through the colonel’s body and cracked out in the air about Larry’s ears.
“You said it more effectively last night,” Larry said dryly.
With an indignant wheeze the colonel padded back into his room. Larry was about to do likewise, sans the indignant wheeze when Gloria put her hand on his shoulder.
“Please don’t go yet,” she said hurriedly. “I’m sure I can talk Father out of his bad mood. We need you for the show tonight. I’ll be in a terrible mess if you don’t stay. Please, just for me?”
What could Larry do?
He shrugged. “Okay. But I’ll be packing just in case.”
“I’ll meet you downstairs in the main hallway in a half hour,” Gloria said. “Everything’s going to be all right. Don’t worry.”
“I stopped worrying hours ago,” Larry said ironically. “It’s up to Fate now.”
Gloria smiled comfortingly at him and then went into her father’s room and closed the door. Larry shrugged and went back to his own room to begin packing. There was only one thing he was worried about.
The colonel might shoot Gloria.
The fact that she was his daughter would probably be only an extra inducement to the fire-belching, hard-headed, stiff-necked old goat!
CHAPTER VI
LARRY was waiting in the hallway when Gloria came down the wide curving steps, smiling triumphantly.
“Everything’s all set,” she said. “I explained to Father that we simply couldn’t do without you tonight, and since the proceeds of the party are for Army relief, he couldn’t very well say no.
She had changed into a simple tweed suit, but he had never seen her looking quite so fresh and lovely.
“You look sweet enough to ration,” he grinned.
She looked at him quickly, slightly startled. Then she smiled. “Isn’t it a little early in the morning for pretty speeches?”
“In your case,” he said, “I don’t imagine it’s ever too early. The average girl doesn’t look quite up to par in the morning, but you look as if you’d spent the night sleeping in the bell of a flower.”
“If I had,” she laughed, “I’d be wrinkled and messy and have dew in my hair.”
She glanced out the window.
“It’s raining a little, but it’s still a nice morning. Would you like to take a walk before breakfast? You haven’t seen any of the grounds yet.”
“Sounds like a wonderful idea,” Larry said. He felt his spirits not only rising, but soaring. That was what a few seconds of this lovely girl’s company did to him, he thought with a slight touch of wonder.
In spite of all the things that happened and were still scheduled to happen he felt illogically and gloriously happy. When Buggy Rafferty and the puppets got through with him this evening, he would probably be slated for free room and board at Atlanta for the next few years, but he didn’t give a damn. Right now he was going for a walk with the most beautiful girl in the world and it had been her suggestion.
Maybe he did have a chance. The thought that this glorious creature could ever return his affection was crazy and unthinkable but Larry, being human, felt hope kindling in his heart.
She got him an umbrella and they went outside. The air was bracingly keen and the misting rain transformed the grounds into a dewy fairyland. On the eastern horizon the sun was crawling sleepily from a blanket of soft clouds and the first long lances of light created a million diamond-bright sparklings in the wet trees and grass.
Larry breathed deeply.
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” the girl said.
“Absolutely tops.” He grinned down at her. “Let’s take a look at the gardens. Maybe I can find that flower you slept in last night.”
“I hope you don’t,” she said. “I forgot to make the bed.”
THEY walked hand in hand across the smooth, landscaped lawn until they came to the riotously colorful gardens. Under the shelter of a lane of trees, they paused. She stood close enough to him so that when he leaned forward a soft strand of hair blew across his face.
She turned slightly and looked up at him, her eyes dark and serious.
“I was wondering,” she said softly, “why this has been so much fun. Is it just the garden and the rain, or is there some other reason?”
“I think there’s another reason,” Larry said. He knew that this was his moment of opportunity and it might never come again. He put his hands on her slim shoulders and smiled down into her eyes.
“What reason is that?” she asked, and her voice caught breathlessly on the words.
Larry started to say the things that had been in his heart forever, but before he could open his mouth he felt a sharp dig in his left ankle.
He winced involuntarily; but the girl didn’t notice. Her eyes were closed and her lips were slightly parted.
Larry glanced down and saw Tim standing on the ground between his feet, carrying a postcard which was bigger than he was. A sharp flash of panic stabbed him. This was no time for Gloria to find out about his animated puppets.
He shoved Tim away with his foot, but the little puppet returned doggedly and began pulling at his trouser leg.
“What were you going to say, Larry?” Gloria asked softly.
Larry shook Tim loose and kicked him as gently as possible into the bushes that bordered the trees.
“I was going to say we’d better be going,” he said hoarsely. “It’s raining. Might get wet.”
Gloria opened her eyes. A spot of color appeared in each cheek. She stared for an instant at Larry with eyes that were hurt and angry.
“I’m sorry I’ve kept you out,” she said evenly. “Forgive me.”
She turned and walked quickly away through the rain toward the house. Larry started after her, but a small voice checked him.
Tim was crawling out of the bushes still carrying the postcard.
“What’s the idea?” he demanded in an injured voice.
“I might ask you the same question,” Larry said bitterly. “You’ve just ruined the best love scene sin
ce ‘Birth of a Nation’.”
“I am determined to be useful,” Tim said doggedly.
“What are you doing with that postcard?”
“I am delivering it. Mail must be delivered and I am determined to be useful.”
Larry bent down wearily and took the postcard from the little puppet. It was not addressed to him. It was addressed to the colonel.
“This isn’t for me,” he said disgustedly.
“I don’t know much about mail yet,” said Tim, “but I can learn.”
“Stop trying to be useful,” Larry said. “Go back to the booth and keep out of trouble. I’ve got enough on my mind without having to worry about you.”
“Fine thing,” Tim said disgustedly. “There’s no room for private initiative any more. That’s what the WPA did.”
“Scat!” Larry said.
Tim trudged off moodily in the direction of the house and Larry was left alone with the misting rain and the garden. The rain got down his neck and the garden looked like a surrealist’s nightmare.
He shivered and went back to his room.
There he made another disquieting discovery.
Pat and Mike were gone. Somehow, they had gotten out of the drawer. There was no way of knowing where they were or what sadistic devilment they were planning.
“Nuts!” said Larry Temple, distinctly and loudly.
CHAPTER VII
FORMALLY clad guests began arriving at about eight o’clock that evening for Gloria’s party. There was a bustle and stir in the big home as servants moved quickly about, passing drinks and answering the door. At the foot of the broad winding stairs stood the colonel and Gloria, greeting the guests as they arrived.
The colonel wore evening clothes and his left breast was decorated with silk ribbons and various campaign stripes. He looked very distinguished and every inch the great retired soldier as he bowed and smiled to the women and shook hands with the men.
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 158