into apartment number seven head first.

"I heard you snooping around out here!" a metallic voice shrilled above him. Marc could hardly believe his ears.

He had always known that, as long as he lived, he would never see a more horrible looking woman than Miss Quirtt, but now, as he looked up, he was dismayed to find that even she, this time a prickly nightmare in pin curlers, had surpassed herself for sheer frightfulness. And just to complete the picture, there was a strange light in her pallid eyes, that he had never seen there before. The movie monsters would have to go a long way to match this, he thought.

"Nice of you to drop in," Miss Quirtt said, and her usual twangey voice had something else in it that was almost undefinable. "Might as well ask your girl friend in too."

From outside, Toffee was spared the alarming sight of Miss Quirtt, but the voice had already suggested to her what she might see, if the door were fully open. "I think I have to be running along," she said uncertainly. "Thanks."

"I think you'd better come in," Marc warned shakily. "She's got a gun."

Toffee peered around the edge of the door and her face went starkly white. Her nose had almost brushed against the business end of a pistol that was almost as formidable as Miss Quirtt, herself. Then, unaccountably, as though remembering a joke, Toffee suddenly smiled and stepped into the room. "Well, if you really insist ..." she said breezily.

Toffee's manner had an instant calming effect on Marc, and in the moment in which Miss Quirtt closed the door behind Toffee, he felt his sense of reality slowly returning. "Is this a joke, Miss Quirtt?" he demanded.

Miss Quirtt regarded him with a sidelong, hostile glance. "I'm not laughing, am I?" she shrilled.

"Then, what...."

"You'd sure like to have your hands on that again, wouldn't you?" she gloated, gesturing toward a shabby table in the corner. On it, looking like a diamond in the mud, rested Marc's brief case. He started automatically toward it, but stopped short as, from the corner of his eye, he saw the gun swerve quickly from Toffee to him.

"Don't be greedy," Miss Quirtt said amusedly.

"I can't get a million dollars together right away," Marc began feverishly, "but 

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