like to even think about it."

Marc had also stretched out a leg, but the sight of it seemed to give him no particular pleasure. Hastily, still holding his gun on Agatha and Chadwick, he reached out and rolled down his trousers.

"Well, thank heaven that's over," he sighed. "What a relief."

"Hypnosis," Chadwick said to Agatha. "That's what it is. Either they hypnotized us into thinking they were children a while ago, or they're hypnotizing us now to make us think they're adults. I wonder which they really are?"

"I don't care," Agatha said with sudden disillusion. "I don't care if they're really a pair of Newfoundland puppies. I don't care about anything anymore."

"I told you," Mr. Culpepper said to Toffee. "It worked like a charm. Now you don't have to be sore at me any more."

Toffee favored the little man with a radiant smile. "I could kiss you," she said recklessly.

"Please do," Mr. Culpepper said.

"Later," Toffee said. "Much later." She turned to Marc. "The decks are clear. Call the cops. Let's get rid of these regal rats."

Marc nodded and retired to the telephone. "We can say they broke in here," he said, "if all else fails."

Toffee, in the meantime, had leveled her gun on the Harpers. "Turn-about is some fun, eh, kids?" she said. "And while we're waiting for the cops, why don't you tell us what really happened to the Duchess of Windsor's jewels? Remember, anything you say will be used to hang you."

Mr. Culpepper teetered to Toffee's side. Screwing his face into what he fondly believed to be a romantic pucker, he lifted himself to his toes and growled, "Kiss me, baby," a la Clark Gable. He wavered a moment and then fell forward.

It might have been the perverse paw of destiny that sent the little man crashing against Toffee. Otherwise, the situation involving the Harpers, Mr. Culpepper and Fixage might easily have righted itself on the spot. The Harpers might have been carted off to the pokey in chains; Mr. Culpepper might have returned to his laboratory for a late pot of coffee; Fixage might have become an unpleasant memory, and Marc and Toffee might have been free to disport themselves in any way that pleased them. It might have happened that way. But it didn't.

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