woman, like me?" She turned pleading eyes on Toffee. "Has a boss ever made a pass at me?"

"No!" Toffee cried, catching the confessional spirit of the thing.

Miss Quirtt nodded approvingly. She seemed to like dramatic effect. "Has a boss' wife ever been jealous of me?" she screeched.

"No!" Toffee cried again, recognizing her cue.

"That's right," Miss Quirtt continued sadly, brushing a tear away from the end of her nose with the muzzle of the gun, then promptly leveling the weapon directly to Marc's heart. "They never have. So I decided to ruin the lot of them." She turned back to Marc. "You're not the first one," she said, beginning to brighten. "There have been many others. I used to work for Mr. Burke."

"The ... the Mr. Burke that committed suicide?" Marc faltered.

"That's right," Miss Quirtt answered proudly. "That was one of my most poetic projects. Mr. Burke found himself with a lot of worthless stock on his hands one morning, and simply jumped out the window. He died without ever knowing who had bought the stuff for him. We parted the best of friends. He left me one of my very finest references ... along with the suicide note."

"It did end well, didn't it?" Toffee put in blandly.

"Yes. It was just lovely," Miss Quirtt agreed. "Much better than the job I did on old Mr. Grant. He didn't leave me any reference at all, and I had to write it myself. How I hate forgery! Of course, it may not have been entirely his fault. After all, they did rush him something awful when they came to take him away to the asylum." A dreamy reminiscent look came into her eyes. "The job with Mr. Forbes was much better. He said some very nice things about me before he left for prison. I was the last one he said goodbye to."

Marc shuddered. "A very impressive career," he said, "but you can't get away with it this time. I know that it was you that stole my brief case."

"Yes," Miss Quirtt answered promptly. "And that's why I'm going to have to make corpses of you ... so you can't talk, you know. It's really not my way of doing things, but I suppose that everyone has to make exceptions occasionally." She turned to Toffee and smiled. "I'm sorry to have to put you out of the way, dear, but you understand, I'm sure."

"Oh, perfectly," Toffee said helpfully, 

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