Toffee nodded. "It's loose," she explained. "I couldn't reach it to tighten it. But I'll bet you can. You're so tall, and all." She pointed to one of the closet's darkest corners. "It's back there." The sheriff, a determined man if anything, followed the suggestion blindly, and moved into the inner darkness of the tiny compartment. Never had a man looked so much like a lamb going trustingly to slaughter. * * * * * It happened just as Toffee had hoped it would. No sooner was the sheriff in the closet than she slammed the door and turned the key standing ready in its lock. It may even be that she closed the door a bit before the sheriff was fully inside, for there had been an undignified slapping sound that implied as much. Either way, however, the deed done, she turned breathlessly to Marc. "Let's get out of here!" she cried. "You've been framed like a museum masterpiece." Marc, too stunned to quite grasp the situation, stared at her blankly. "What did you do with the gun?" Toffee went on. "It's upstairs, on my bed," he murmured, gazing unbelievingly at the closet door. The atmosphere within the closet was swiftly becoming agitated. A series of formidable thudding sounds was suddenly followed by a shriek that sounded like a fast freight going through a rural junction at midnight. "I think the sheriff's found the body," Toffee commented dryly. "Well, it's what he was after, and he can't say we didn't do our best to help him. Let's get out of here. If he keeps that up, he'll wake the dead." To Marc the remark seemed singularly ill-timed. Shudderingly, as he followed Toffee out the door, he tried not to think of the grim goings-on inside the darkened closet. * * * * * The car swerved crazily, missed the oncoming truck by a sickeningly narrow margin, and sped on down the highway, followed by a shower of rare and salty expletives, recited with great sincerity by a truck driver who was undisputedly a master of spicy invective. "I thought you knew how to drive," Marc moaned, moving his hands slowly away from his eyes. "There's nothing to it," Toffee bragged, pressing the accelerator to the floor. "There certainly isn't, the way you do it," Marc replied coldly. "You just step on the starter and, zoom!, before you know it, you're resting quietly in the morgue. It's a dandy arrangement if you have a passion for morgues. It just happens that I haven't." "Nonsense!" Toffee cried. "You worry too much. A child could do it!" "I'd rather a child did," Marc sighed defeatedly. "I'd feel safer." "Watch this!" Toffee cried happily. And she started swinging the wheel recklessly from side to side so that the car careened deliriously back and forth, across the road. "There's no end to the fun you can have in a car!" "Oh, yes there is!" Marc cried, clinging desperately to the door handle. "And ours should take place within the next ten seconds, if I'm any judge!"