As soon as Phil finished, Mary Akeley cut in. She was through sewing clothes and had begun to put them on a relatively bulky doll which Phil recognized as the portrait of Moe Brimstine she'd started on last night. To his amazement, Phil noticed that she was even putting underwear on the doll and slipping almost microscopically tiny objects into its pants pockets with a tiny tweezer.
She said, "Did you happen to find out, Phil, why little old Dr. Romadka kidnapped those three cats of ours?"
Phil explained, as briefly and unsickeningly as he could, what had happened to them.
Mary reached over her shoulder and got the doll that was the image of Dr. Romadka. She fixed on it her witchiest stare.
"Slow, slow acid dripped on your forehead," she incanted with a sincerity that sent gooseflesh coursing under Phil's shirt. "And I hope it's days before it gets in your eye. That's the first and mildest of your torments." She picked up the doll she'd been dressing and informed it, "That goes for you, too. After the acid really gets in the first eye, we deviate to other parts of your body. To begin with...."
A sudden cat fight prevented Phil from finding out just how nasty Mary Akeley's imagination could get. Sacheverell separated the five squalling combatants with a few painless but strategic kicks. Then he hitched up his turquoise slacks and said, looking at his wife severely, "Now perhaps we can forget all hates and other dark vibrations and get down to business. Here's the situation, Mr. Gish. Earlier today, Juno overheard her husband Jackie tell Cookie where Billig and Mr. Brimstine are hiding...."
"Just Moe Brimstine," Juno corrected dourly.
"Comes to the same thing," Sacheverell went on. "Now Jackie and Cookie are safely asleep upstairs...."
"Yes," Juno butted in again, "but they're not going to stay that way too much longer."
"Not after what you put in their whiskey?" Sacheverell asked her with a thin smile.