"Hmmm. Say, doc, y'sure these ain't some other dame's? Maybe yer wife's--?" "I assure you, I have never been married." He looks wistful-like. "Since meeting Miss LaTour, I grant you I have toyed with the speculation of what marital bliss might have been like with someone of the caliber of--" Just then, the window behind me pops open with a crash that breaks it into a zillion pieces, and into the room steps Luigi. I couldn't of been more scared if I'd started seeing snakes, which I had, since Luigi looks like the meanest kind of viper in the zoo. "Okay, pop," he snarls, deadly-like. "Where ya keepin' her?" The little guy doesn't even turn a hair, whiles I'm startin' to get rid of all the stuff I been drinkin', reflex-like, so's I'll be lighter fer the takeoff when I kin get my feet unfroze. "How did you get here?" the prof inquires, cool like a cucumber. "I climbed in through that there space warp you been warblin' about," Luigi sneers, and I can see he is in a definitely unsociable mood. "You!" he hollers, looking at where I was before he hollered, and when I come down off the top of the bookcase he says, "What do you know about it?" "Luigi," I peeps, "I ain't never seen this guy until tonight." "He's telling the truth, Luigi," the little guy says, and I coulda kissed him fer it. "Okay, pop. So now that you're talkin', start singin'. And it better be on the level, too. What did you do with my gal? C'mon, spill it, or you'll be spillin' more than words." "I told you the truth the first time," the little guy says, with terrific dignity fer a future corpse. I thought Luigi would bust a jet-gasket, but all of a sudden he calms down, and gets an expression on his puss like a tiger tryin' to smile. "Look pop," he says, "I know how it is." And he's almost beggin' now. "I know LaTour. She's gotta have a change once't in a while. But I love that dame, see? And I gotta have her back. So if you'll just tell me where she is, I'm willin' to forget all about everythin' else--" The little guy just looks at him sort of pitying-like. "I assure you I'd like to help you, Luigi, but--" He stops, with his mouth open, his eyes poppin' out of his head. He's starin' at somethin' behind me and Luigi's. * * * * * I hears a low, silvery laugh, kinda like little bells tinklin', and the kinda voice you figure that there pie-eyed piper musta had on his flute, is sayin': "Well! Hello, suckers!" When Luigi hears that laugh, he whirls around like a weathercock on top of a landship station, his face all red and puffed up. "Baby!" He gets that far, then _his_ eyes start to pop out. Mine are already rollin' on the rug. Standin' there, laughin' like she is havin' the time of her luscious life, is the Queen of Burly-que, Helen LaTour herself, in, what I mean, the flesh. She is holdin' some white sort of a robe or somethin' over her head, and aside from that, she ain't got a stitch on that knockout of a body of hers.