“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 since ‘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.
Gloria, at his side, was a ravishing vision in a gleaming white formal that transformed her slender body into a flowing picture of perfection. Suspended from her slender throat was a magnificent diamond.
But while she smiled and chatted readily with the stream of guests that passed, there was sadness in the haunting depths of her eyes.
Larry noticed all this from the top of the stairs.
He was standing there in the semidarkness trying to work up enough courage to go down and face the crowd and Gloria and the colonel. Particularly the colonel.
The puppets were still missing; Buggy Rafferty had not yet disclosed what his plans were for the evening; and the colonel would most likely shoot on sight. But Larry had almost reached the saturation point as far as worry was concerned. He had been through too much. With a fatalistic shrug he decided to let the future take care of itself.
He descended the stairs slowly.
Gloria looked up at him and for an instant there was a strange light in her eyes. Then she composed her features in a polite mask and smiled coldly.
“Nice of you to come down,” she murmured. “The entertainment is scheduled to start at nine o’clock, you know.”
“I can hardly wait,” Larry said drily.
The colonel turned to him with a smile and extended his hand.
“Nice to have you with us tonight, sir. Please make yourself at home and feel free—”
He recognized Larry then and his hand fell to his side. The smile hardened on his craggy face. His mustaches bristled alarmingly.
“Will you be good enough to remove yourself from my presence,” he snarled. “I refuse to be responsible for the consequences if I am forced to endure more of your company, sir!”
Larry regarded the colonel for an instant with level eyes. He was getting thoroughly fed up with this pompous old goat’s domineering bluster.
“I suggest, sir,” he said courteously, “that you take a running jump in the lake for yourself.”
He turned and strode away, deriving some consolation from the startled, incredulous expression that had registered on the colonel’s seamy features.
He avoided the groups of drinking guests in the drawing room and went on through the library into the sun room. There he stared gloomily at his puppet booth. Tim was seated on the stage looking rather blue, but of Pat and Mike there was no sign.
A door opened and Buggy Rafferty appeared.
“Hiya, chum?” he said affably.
Larry looked at the man and winced. He was wearing a camel’s, hair sport coat and green slacks. A yellow tie stood out gruesomely against a red shirt. He was smoking his inevitable cigar and packing his inevitable pistol.
“Nice to see you again,” Larry said.
“Tonight’s the night,” Buggy said, cheerily. “I got everything set. Did you notice that diamond pendant the filly is wearing?”
“You mean Miss Manners, I presume?”
“Don’t get hoity-toity. It ain’t becoming. That rock is what I got my eyes on. And everything is set perfectly.”
“Fine,” Larry said despairingly. He left the sunroom moodily.
He wandered into the drawingroom and observed the antics of the guests with a gloomy eye. In a corner of the room, Dereck, sleek and immaculate in tails, was spellbinding an awed group of young girls with tales of his exploits on far-flung and perilous battle fronts.
They were listening in thrilled fascination.
Larry sauntered past and Dereck’s smooth effective words reached him.
“...the Messerschmidt, I dare say, thought I was a goner. And at that particular moment I would have agreed with him. But...”
Larry drifted on and Dereck’s voice faded out. He felt no curiosity as to how Dereck had escaped the Nazi trap. The fact that he obviously had, destroyed his interest in the story.
He was standing in a deserted corner of the room, wondering how his personal and professional problems would eventually work out when he saw Gloria walk to the center of the room and raise her hands for attention.
Her announcement was brief.
“We have an interesting surprise for you,” she smiled at the guests. “From Broadway, we have been fortunate enough to secure the services of a very talented young man and he is now going to amuse us as only he can.”
She waved her hand toward the sunroom and two servants appeared shoving the puppet booth into the center of the room. With a graceful gesture she pointed to Larry, who was standing miserably against the wall.
“I think the young man deserves a hand,” she said brightly. “After all, he’s had nothing to do all day but walk around in the rain and that can’t have been very interesting.”
Larry moved out from the wall and bowed as the guests clapped politely. Walking past Gloria he murmured, “Keep your punches legal, chum.”
He proceeded to the puppet booth like a man marching the Last Mile. There was no way in the world he could put on an act with only Tim and he had no idea of where the other puppets, Pat and Mike were. They hadn’t put in an appearance since escaping from the drawer in his room that morning.