* * * * * The congressman bent his shaggy head close over the gadget and examined it minutely. He picked it up, weighed it in his hand, then shrugged and dropped it negligently into his pocket. "Let's have a look at these two crackpots," he said, rising from his chair. "We'll have to dispose of them, of course." "Okay," the thug said. "I just hope they've got things settled with this George before we get there." Back in the storeroom, however, events were lurching ahead in a most uncertain manner. Things had started with an air of mild strangeness and mounted swiftly to a state of wild-eyed madness. Finding themselves confined and in the hands of blood-thirsting murderers, Marc and Toffee had paused only momentarily to survey their musty prison, the cases of wines, brandies and whiskies stacked along the walls, before returning to the subject uppermost in their minds. Toffee, doubling her fists, addressed herself to the room at large. "George," she said evenly, "we know you're with us. You gave yourself away in the car when you let that foot materialize, and you'll give yourself away again. And when you do, brother, I'm going to kick your teeth out one at a time and have them made into shirt studs. I'm going to...!" "It's no use threatening him," Marc interrupted. "He's got the advantage. He's just hanging around waiting for me to be killed. And he'll probably have his way before they're done with us." In answer, a stifled yawn echoed from somewhere in back of them. Toffee whirled about. "Listen to him!" she fumed. "Now he's rubbing it in! That was the most put-on yawn I ever heard." She started forward, but Marc put out a hand to stop her. He drew her toward the corner. "Listen," he said in lowered tones, "I've just thought of something. Maybe we can trap him." "We certainly should be able to," Toffee agreed hotly. "George is pure rat, through and through. If we only had some cheese...." "What about whiskey?" Marc asked. "There's plenty of it here, and where George is concerned it's the best bait in the world." "I wonder why he hasn't been at it already?" Toffee said, surveying the crates along the walls. "The place is practically seething with the stuff." "He's too smart," Marc said. "He doesn't want to show where he is. By the time he opened a crate and got the bottle out we'd have him located. He's afraid we'd slug him." "Of course we'd slug him," Toffee said. "I personally intend to bop the living bejesus out of him at the very first opportunity. What difference does that make?" "He knows what we're after," Marc explained. "He knows we want him to show himself to these people so they won't know which one of us is me. And look what happened to George the last time he was knocked out." * * * * * Toffee looked up with a smile of understanding. "Of course!" she said. "He lost control of his ectoplasm and materialized."