“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.