“Not long,” Tim answered. “We came to life sort of gradually. The first night was when we put on the show at the theatre without you.”
“So you did that, did you?” Larry asked.
“Yes. We were pretty good, too. Better, I guess, than when you ran things.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Larry said.
“I didn’t think we ought to let anybody know about us coming alive, but I couldn’t make Pat and Mike see it my way. They think they’re going to have a lot of fun now.”
“This is terrible,” Larry whispered. “How’d you happen to become animated in the first place?”
“We were made from the wood of a carnivorous tree,” Tim explained. “It was inevitable.”
“I see,” Larry said. If this wasn’t the damnedest thing!
Another thing occurred to him then. “Where did Pat and Mike go?” he asked. He felt that he should have asked that question immediately.
“They went to find the nasty man with the white mustaches,” Tim answered.
“The colonel?”
“They didn’t like him,” Tim said. “He called us stupid and silly. Mike and Pat felt very hurt. They were going to do something about it.”
“Good God!” Larry groaned. “How long have they been gone.”
“I don’t know,” Tim said. “I can’t tell time.”
Larry lifted the puppet from his shoulder and put him back on the stage. He had to stop Mike and Pat somehow.
“What were they going to do to the colonel?” he demanded.
“They were going to puncture the hot water bottle in his bed,” Tim giggled. “All they needed was a needle. They figured he would be pretty surprised when the water leaked out in the middle of the night.”
Larry groaned. This would certainly put him in solid with the colonel. The old ram-rod would naturally blame him for anything that happened. The only thing he could do was to try and stop Mike and Pat before it was too late.
He shook a finger sternly at Tim. “You stay here, you understand?”
“Yes. I am waiting for the show to go on. I want to do what is right.” Larry patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.
“Good boy,” he said. “I wish the others were like you.”
He switched off the light and hurried back through the library and up the stairs. The upper floors were dark and he had to feel his way along, but he remembered Gloria saying that the colonel’s room was across the hall from his own, and that made his job simpler.
He hesitated at the door of the colonel’s room. He had a normal amount of courage but there was something about invading the sanctity of the old boy’s boudoir that unnerved him. Still, every man has his Rubicon to cross, and Larry was no exception.
With a silent prayer he gently opened the door and eased himself into the darkened room.
Chapter IV
The only sound that disturbed the stillness of the room was the slightly asthmatic breathing of the colonel. This stertorous noise emanated from one corner of the room and Larry rightly presumed that the old gentleman was lying there in bed, enjoying his well-earned rest.
So far so good.
Apparently Mike and Pat hadn’t gotten this far.
This comforting thought was blasted an instant later as Larry heard a slight scuffling sound at the foot of the colonel’s bed, followed by a muffled snicker.
Pat and Mike were obviously on deck and up to no good.
Larry moved cautiously toward the looming shadow of the bed. Tim had mentioned that the two obstreperous puppets, Pat and Mike, were planning some shenanigans with the hot water bottle at the foot of the colonel’s bed.
Obviously the quickest way to circumvent their scheme would be to simply remove the hot water bottle. That, to Larry, seemed the essence of logic.
With this idea in mind he carefully lifted the covers at the foot of the bed and began a cautious search for the bottle.
He felt something bump against his foot and he heard a giggling laugh somewhere from the region under the bed. He swore softly and continued his search, trying desperately to locate the rubber bottle without awakening the colonel.
But the best-laid plans can go awry, as Larry discovered to his sorrow. His hand encountered a welling puddle of water at the foot of the bed and at the same there was an enraged bellow from the colonel.
Larry froze in his tracks. All of his common-sense instincts were screaming at him to flee; but he was powerless to move. He stood like a man in a trance as the bedclothes threshed about and the colonel’s bulky shadow loomed black against the darkness as he sat bolt upright in bed.
There was a snap of an electric switch and then there was light.
The colonel stared in apoplectic bewilderment at Larry. His white mustaches were bristling with outraged indignation. And in one gnarled hand he held a huge black pistol which was pointed unwaveringly at Larry’s midriff.
“What, sir,” he said, in a strangled, hoarse voice, “is the meaning of this?”
Larry made futile efforts to speak.
His mouth opened. His tongue went through the accepted motions but no words broke the silence. He waved his hands desperately and eloquently; but it takes a lot of hand-waving to explain anything, let alone a situation as complicated and embarrassing as that confronting Larry.
The colonel watched with the sort of disgusted interest a person might bestow upon a creature scurrying from beneath a damp rock.
“I presume you have something to say,” he said with icy deliberation.
Larry continued to flutter his hands helplessly. It was all he could do.
“If those are semaphore signals you may discontinue them,” the colonel said with terrible calmness.
He threw back the covers of the bed and stood up, towering like Biblical figure of wrath in his flowing nightdress and disordered white hair.
He inspected the condition of his bed with ominous quiet. His eye moved over the hot water bottle which was punctured in a dozen places with tiny needle pricks; his jaw tightened spasmodically as he viewed the soaked mattress and sheets.
Gleaming guiltily in the center of the spreading patch of dampness was a large darning needle.
The colonel picked up the needle between his thumb and forefinger. He extended it toward Larry.
“Yours, I believe,” he said stiffly.
Larry accepted the needle dumbly. His voice was beginning to return to normalcy.
“This is all a terrible mistake,” he said. The words popped out in a stuttering rush.
The colonel eyed him coldly from under lowering brows.
“You are absolutely right,” he said. “This is a terrible mistake for you, my young friend.” His tone of voice could have been used by a Judge sentencing an ax-slayer to life imprisonment.
“You don’t understand, sir,” Larry said desperately. “I came here to prevent someone from puncturing your hot water bottle.”
“So?” The colonel’s brows arched coldly. “And who is this ‘someone’ who was interested in doing that?” Larry sputtered and again no words were forthcoming. He couldn’t explain to the colonel about the animated puppets. The man would think he had lost his mind.
“I can’t say,” he blurted. “But you must believe me. I didn’t do this.”
The colonel laid aside his gun and there was a noticeable touch of regret in the gesture.
“One doesn’t shoot one’s guests,” he said quietly. He straightened and looked Larry coldly in the eye.
“Young man, I am a just and tolerant person. I do not believe that I am harsh or vindictive. Let us therefore review the facts as they stand. I am awakened in the middle of the night by a person to whom I have extended the hospitality of my home. I find that person standing at the foot of my bed with a darning needle in his hand. I find the hot water bottle, which I am accustomed to keep at the foot of my bed, punctured in a dozen places and myself, practically inundated by the contents of the aforementioned water bottle. I demand explanations. I receive a barrage of incoherent gibberish accompanied by wild gestures which should, in my considered opinion, be restricted in the future by a straitjacket. Those, briefly and with a commendable lack of profanity, are my conclusions. If you have nothing further to add—”