The girl had a good figure although not a particularly feminine one. Her shoulders were extraordinarily broad, almost like a husky boy's. Her hips were boyishly small, too. With long hours of nothing to do except exercise on the jungle gym, it was no wonder she had developed the shoulders and upper arm musculature of a man.
Shirley Mace took a small hose and sluiced her daughter down from head to foot. Water splashed everywhere as the girl pirouetted, squealing happily. It was the first sound I had heard her make. When her mother turned off the hose, Rachel slapped herself on her bare stomach invitingly. "No more now, dear," Mrs. Mace said. She returned to us at the doorway. We went outside, and George Mace fastened the pin in the latch.
We filed up the stairs. "We'll turn it around," I said to Harris when we were in the kitchen again. "We'll bring the Bartons over here. Where is there a better place to keep everyone than in that basement stockade? Well-"
"No!" Shirley Mace exclaimed violently. She said it so loudly that her husband jumped. "I won't have the Bartons here to see-to see-"
"Quiet, you," Harris said to her. He appeared glad of the chance to sound off his frustration on someone. "Will it work?" he asked me.
"Better than we planned," I assured him. "You stay here while Dick and I round up the Bartons and bring them here."
"Right," Harris said. Removed from the disturbing presence downstairs, he was beginning to function again. He motioned with his gun at the Maces. "Sit down, you two."
"Well be right back," I said, and left the kitchen. After the bright lights in the basement, the night seemed triply dark outside. I went down the side walk and diagonally across the street to Dahl's car.
"Where's Harris? Where's the Maces?" he demanded.
"Change in the blueprint," I said as I opened the car door. "We're bringing the Bartons over here."
"No kidding? What the hell for?"
"Because it's a better setup. Drive slowly," I said to shut him up.
"But what-"
"Let's get ready to do the job we have to do."
I could tell he was sulking, but he drove to the Barton home, which was dark. We left the car and walked up the driveway to the rear of the house. When the first pass of the celluloid produced no result, I didn't feel I could wait. I took the pry-bar, inserted it between the sill and the edge of the door, and jacked the door away from the lock. The door sprang open with only a rasping squeak. Inside, I took Dahl's arm and pointed him toward the dining room. "The phone wires come in beneath the end window. Cut them."
I stood at the foot of the stairs leading up to the second floor until he returned from the mission. "Do we go up after 'em?" he wanted to know.
"Yes. The kids first. You have the tie-cords and gags?"
"Sure."
We climbed the stairs. They were well padded and well carpeted. We made no sound. The Schemer's diagram showed that the first bedroom at the top of the stairs was Tommy's, the fourteen-year-old son. His door was open. We could see him, face down, clad only in the bottoms of his pajamas, sleeping soundly.
"Let me handle this," Dahl muttered. He handed me two slip-knotted tie-cords. Approaching the bed, he flipped the boy onto his back, pinning him down at the same time as he clamped a hand over his mouth. "Ankles first," Dahl, said. I noosed them before Tommy had sufficiently roused from sleep to struggle. "Hands behind his back," Dahl continued, rolling the boy over while maintaining his hand gag. That was more difficult, but I managed.
"Reach in my right-hand pocket," Dahl went on. I found gauze pads and adhesive. It took only a moment to fashion a gag and apply it as Dahl removed his hand. Dahl then took the loose ends of the tie-cords and knotted them together, fastening wrists to ankles on a short tether. It prohibited much movement. The boy's flashing eyes glittered at us above the gag. He appeared more angry than afraid.
"That'll do for this one," Dahl assured me. He led the way to the bedroom of the eleven-year-old across the hall. The mechanics of the operation went exactly the same except that Dahl wasn't quite as rough. "Lie still, honey. Nobody's gonna hurt you," he whispered before we departed.
Ellen's room was next. I was afraid of this one. It was unlikely that the seventeen-year-old would be as heavy a sleeper as the younger children. The door to her room was closed. Dahl eased it open an inch at a time.
I was standing right behind him. I couldn't imagine why he kept opening the door wider and wider, far more than was necessary to slip inside. I put my lips to his ear. "What's the matter?" I murmured.
He opened the door all the way and moved to one side to let me see for myself.
Ellen Barton's bed was neatly turned down, but it hadn't been slept in.
And of Ellen Barton herself there was no trace.
13
"D'you think she's sleepin' at a girl friend's?" Dahl muttered.
"More likely a boyfriend's," I replied, thinking of the Schemer's report on the elder Barton daughter. "Let's make sure of the Bartons."
Ellen Barton's disappearance from her room was just one more thing gone wrong in a night notably full of same. We backed out of her bedroom and moved down the hall. The door to the master bedroom was closed, too. I could hear snoring.
There was no need for finesse now. There was no one left to be wakened by a scream. I opened the bedroom door and walked in. Behind me, Dahl flicked on the light switch. Dahl and I were standing on either side of the bed by the time Thomas Barton struggled from the depths of sleep to a sitting position. Thelma Barton snored on.
The bank manager blinked at Dahl's mask. "What- what-" he stammered.
"Quiet," Dahl ordered. His eyes on the sleeping Thelma Barton, he picked up the husband's pillow.
At the sound of Dahl's voice, the snoring stopped. Thelma Barton spoke with her eyes closed. "Put out that light, Tom," she said. "You shouldn't have had that last bottle of beer."
"Dear," her husband began.
I don't know what it was she thought she heard in his voice, but her eyes snapped open. I could see the scream starting from her toes. Dahl saw it, too. He dropped the pillow onto her face. The scream dissipated itself in a hissing sound. Dahl held the pillow in place till she stopped fighting it. "Quiet," he warned again, and removed the pillow.
Thelma Barton sat up. She was the picture of indignation. Her hair was in curlers and her nightgown had slipped off one shoulder, disclosing an undersized breast. "You two will go to the electric chair for this," she proclaimed, jerking the gown back into place. She had a jaw-line like a grenadier guard. "Where are my children?" she demanded, glaring at Dahl.
"In their beds," Dahl replied. I could tell from his voice he was enjoying himself. "Except Ellen."
"Except Ellen?" Mrs. Barton's voice rose an octave. "What do you mean 'except Ellen'?"
"Her bed hasn't been slept in."
"Hasn't been-" Thelma Barton's bare feet hit the floor with a splat. Beneath her gown, her long, thin legs scissored toward the doorway. Dahl followed her. I could sense his smirk at the woman's semitransparent dishabille.
When they disappeared down the hallway, I looked at the man in the bed. "We're going to the bank shortly," I said.
"The bank!" he exclaimed, his eyes bulging. "I thought-"
"It's not a house burglary."
"But you can't possibly hope to accomplish-"
I was listening to Thelma Barton's audible return from her daughter's room. "Imagine!" she was saying as she burst into the master bedroom. "That vixen has gone out over the roof again! After all our lectures, Tom! I'll-"
"Get dressed, Mrs. Barton," I said.
"Dressed? What for?"
"We're all going to the Mace home."
She got the picture. Her tone lost some of its incisive-ness. "What about Margie and Tommy?"