Opperly's voice suddenly became sharp, clear and romantic: "I'd be
delighted to, Miss da Silva."
Dytie turned to the others with a self-satisfied smile. "Op'ly me got
much talk 'bout," she announced. "'Scuse please. Dion you take care
pussycat business me."
And she and Dr. Opperly strolled out through the dining room arm in
arm, beaming at each other and chatting happily.
Sacheverell looked after them a shade critically. "They don't seem to
have any great regard for the importance of the situation, I must say,
so we'll carry on by ourselves in making plans to rescue the Green One.
Mr. Gish, what have you to contribute?"
In a few sentences Phil sketched how he'd found Lucky at Fun
Incorporated, lost him again, then caught up with him at the Humberford
Foundation just before Dora Pannes grabbed him.
As soon as Phil finished, Mary Akeley cut in. She was through sewing
clothes and had begun to put them on a relatively bulky doll which
Phil recognized as the portrait of Moe Brimstine she'd started on
last night. To his amazement, Phil noticed that she was even putting
underwear on the doll and slipping almost microscopically tiny objects
into its pants pockets with a tiny tweezer.
She said, "Did you happen to find out, Phil, why little old Dr. Romadka
kidnapped those three cats of ours?"
Phil explained, as briefly and unsickeningly as he could, what had
happened to them.
Mary reached over her shoulder and got the doll that was the image of
Dr. Romadka. She fixed on it her witchiest stare.
"Slow, slow acid dripped on your forehead," she incanted with a
sincerity that sent gooseflesh coursing under Phil's shirt. "And I hope
it's days before it gets in your eye. That's the first and mildest of
your torments." She picked up the doll she'd been dressing and informed
it, "That goes for you, too. After the acid really gets in the first
eye, we deviate to other parts of your body. To begin with...."
A sudden cat fight prevented Phil from finding out just how nasty
Mary Akeley's imagination could get. Sacheverell separated the five
squalling combatants with a few painless but strategic kicks. Then he
hitched up his turquoise slacks and said, looking at his wife severely,
"Now perhaps we can forget all hates and other dark vibrations and get
down to business. Here's the situation, Mr. Gish. Earlier today, Juno
overheard her husband Jackie tell Cookie where Billig and Mr. Brimstine
are hiding...."
"Just Moe Brimstine," Juno corrected dourly.
"Comes to the same thing," Sacheverell went on. "Now Jackie and Cookie
are safely asleep upstairs...."
"Yes," Juno butted in again, "but they're not going to stay that way
too much longer."
"Not after what you put in their whiskey?" Sacheverell asked her with a
thin smile.
"Listen," Juno told him, "those two guys have had more things in their
whiskey than ever got wrote down in books jerks like you read. They're
tough, the little punks."