“All right. If I have the driver let you off at the bus depot in Old Yonkers, can you make it from there?” They nodded, and he leaned forward to tap on the window.
At Old Yonkers their car stopped outside an Inter-City depot. The car behind skidded to a stop beside them. Hubble, Nelson, and Coett peered out anxiously. “Anything wrong?” Hubble yelled through a window.
Mundin shook his head, let Lana and Norvie out, and permitted his driver to start up again.
And twenty minutes later they reached Hubble’s home.
Quiet and comfortable it was. Simple it was not. It Azras a Charles Addams monster in a fabulous private park in Westchester. They rolled up its driveway and parked next to what appeared to be a 1928 Rolls-Royce limousine.
Bliss Hubble was already at the door of then: car, holding it open for them. “My wife,” he explained, indicating the limousine. “She makes a fetish of period decoration. Today it’s Hoover, I see; last week it was Neo-Roman. Can’t say I care for it, but one has one’s obligations.”
“And one has one’s wife,” said Norma Lavin, who appeared to be back to her normal self.
“Oh, it’s very nice,” soothed Mundin. “So stately.”
Mrs. Hubble greeted them with an unbelieving look. She turned to her husband with an “explain-f/jw-if-you-can” air.
Hubble said hastily, “My dear, may I present Miss Lavin——”
“Just Lavin,” Norma said coldly.
“Of course. Lavin. And this is Mr. Mundin; I believe you know Harry and George. Mr. Mundin was good enough to compliment the way youVe fixed up the house.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Hubble, ice forming on her gaze. “Please thank Mr. Mundin, and inform him that his taste is quite in agreement with that of our housekeeper—who is no longer with us, since I woke up this morning and found she had set the house for this unsightly, trashy piece of construction. Please mention to Mr. Mundin, too, that when she left— rapidly—she took with her all the key settings, and as a con-
sequence I have been condemned to roam through these revolting rooms until my husband chose to come home with his keys so that I might change them into something more closely resembling a human habitation.” Hubble stiffened, thrust a hand into a pocket, brought out a set of keys. With them his wife swept off through the vast, bare rooms.
“Sensitive,” Hubble muttered to his guests.
Coett said eagerly, “We got a couple of things straight on the way over, Mundin. Now——”
Hubble said severely, “Harry, I insist! I’m the host. Not another Word until we’ve had dinner.”
He led’tae way through a majestic corridor, keeping carefully to the middle. At some unnoticed sign he said sharply, “Watch it!”
The others obediently stood clear of the walls, which were coming into curious, shimmering motion. “My wife,” Hubble explained with a glassy smile. “You’d think a regular bubble-house wall would be enough, but nol Nothing will do but full three-D illusion throughout. The expense! The stumbling home in the dark! The waking up in the middle of the night because the four-poster is changing into a Hollywood bed! She’s a light sleeper, you see——”
The walls had firmed up now; the old furniture was fully retracted, and new pieces had formed. Mrs. Hubble’s present preference seemed to be Early Wardroom—a satisfactory enough style for the flying bridge of a cruiser, but not really Mundin’s idea of how to decorate a home. He withheld comment
The table talk was not sparkling; everyone was hungry. “Am I to understand,” Hubble probed gently, “that Miss— that Lavin, I mean, was actually abducted by Mr. Arnold?”
“Doubt it very much,” said Norma, chewing. “He probably just looked unhappy and said something like, ‘Dear me, I wish something could be done about that stock.’ Some foot-kisser standing by set the wheels in motion. Arnold’s hands would be clean. Not his fault if people insist on exceeding their authority.”
She took another forkful of wild rice. “They had me for about a week. My God, what confusion! I could go and I couldn’t go. I was free to leave any time I cared to, but temporarily they thought it would be better to keep the door