"I really think we should be getting on, don't you?" Agatha broke in. "I observed several police persons at the end of the lot when we came out."
"Right-ho," Chadwick said.
"Police persons!" Toffee snorted. "Just listen! You'd think this was a garden party!"
Agatha turned to her with a slow smile. "Quite right," she said. "Tea and bullets will be served directly. And remember, should we be stopped for any reason along the way, you and your little friend will act as our children. You'll call Chadwick daddy and me mummy." She pointed to Toffee. "You're Gwendolyn and the boy is Horace. Mr. Culpepper is your uncle Ben. Understand?"
"Oh, yes," Toffee said brightly. "We're just one big stuffy family. Only if mummy drops her gun, Gwendolyn is going to kick the stuffing out of her, and don't you forget it, sister."
Agatha shuddered delicately. "Please," she said. "Unless you watch your language a bit more closely I'm afraid I'll have to wash your mouth out with cyanide."
Toffee retired to a corner and sat down, folding her arms dispiritedly over her chest. "I wash my hands of this whole affair," she mumbled. "This is the most boring stick-up I've ever been in."
The occasion, thankfully, did not arise for Marc and Toffee to use their unlikely aliases. Uninterrupted, save by traffic lights, the black delivery truck made its way from the center of the city into an old commercial district of derelict buildings and littered streets. Chadwick turned the truck in at an alleyway and pulled to a stop behind an aging, disreputable-looking warehouse. He got out of the car long enough to open a pair of huge barn-like doors and returned to drive the vehicle inside. The little party alighted, and the newcomers were given a brief moment to inspect their surroundings before the doors were closed again, shutting out most of the light.
Bare rafters lay high above them and all the windows had been boarded over. Along the right hand wall a rickety stairway stretched upward to a kind of landing, the outer edge of which was lined with a mouldering railing. Beyond the railing a blank, unpainted wall offered several doors, probably entrances to subsidiary storerooms or offices. Whatever things of value the place had once protected it now harbored only dust and disuse.