Marlborough district. It's a pretty bad neighborhood. My laboratory is down there in an old building, I couldn't afford anything better. Anyway, I met these people one night ... I guess I was drinking a little too much ... and I told them about Fixage and how I was going to make a fortune with it. They were quite impressed. Ah, my dear, that feels good. My feet had nearly gone to sleep."

"Go on," Marc said. "What about the Harpers?"

"Well, I could tell they'd had plastic surgery done on their faces, and I guess I should have suspected them right away. Illegal treatment, you know, thrives down in that part of town. I think maybe they've escaped from the penitentiary or something, but there's no way of identifying them. They broke into my laboratory several times, but I didn't know who it was until now. They're planning to steal my formula and kill me and say they invented Fixage themselves. They followed me here today somehow and grabbed me when I came out."

"Where are they now?"

"They saw me carrying a brief case into the building and they think I've hidden it in there. They've gone back to look for it."

"Where is it?" Marc asked.

The little man chuckled. "In the men's room," he said. "I forgot and left it. They'll never find it there."

"Good night!" Marc said. "Someone else might. Is the formula in it?"

"Oh, no," the little man said. "There's nothing in it but my dirty laundry. I never put my experiments on paper."

"Where is the formula?"

Mr. Culpepper smiled. "In my head," he said. "I work everything out in my head. I just go into a kind of trance and things start coming to me. I don't really need a laboratory at all but it makes a better impression to have one. I just go down there and cook up a pot of coffee once in a while for the sake of appearances."

At last Marc unraveled the snarl of knots about the little man's wrists. "There you are," he said. "Let's go."

He proceeded to the door of the truck and peeked out. Memphis and the policeman were at a safe distance and seemed too involved in a heated argument to notice anything else. Marc lowered himself to the ground and turned back, holding out his arms. "Here, I'll help you down," he said to Toffee. "Just give me your...."

 Prev. P 16/54 next