Tom sat back down on the lion’s back, looking along the street to where the arcade lights flickered.

“That’s not the real Mrs. Tarot?”

“Inside that glass box, under all that red and blue silk and all that old half-melted wax, sure! Maybe a long time ago someone got jealous or hated her and poured wax over;j her and kept her prisoner forever and she’s passed down the line from villain to villain and wound up here, centuries later, in Green Town, Illinois—working for Indian-head pennies instead of the crown heads of Europe!”

“Villains? Mr. Black?”

“Name’s Black, shirt’s black, pants’re black, tie’s black. Movie villains wear black, don’t they?”

“But why didn’t she yell last year, the year before?”

“Who knows, every night for a hundred years she’s been writing messages in lemon juice on cards, but everybody read her regular message, nobody thought, like us, to run a match over the back to bring out the real message. Lucky I know what secours means.”

“Okay, she said, ‘Help!’ Now what?”

“We save her, of course.”

“Steal her out from under Mr. Black’s nose, huh? And wind up witches ourselves in glass boxes with wax poured on our faces the next ten thousand years.”

“Tom, the library’s here. We’ll arm ourselves with spells and magic philters to fight Mr. Black.”

“There’s only one magic philter will fix Mr. Black,” said Tom. “Soon’s he gets enough pennies any one evening, he—well, let’s see.” Tom drew some coins from his pocket. “This just might do it. Doug, you go read the books. I’ll run back and look at the Keystone Kops fifteen times; I never get tired. By the time you meet me at the arcade, it might be the old philter will be working for us.”

“Tom, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Doug, you want to rescue this princess or not?”

Douglas whirled and plunged.

Tom watched the library doors wham shut and settle. Then he leaped over the lion’s back and down into the night. On the library steps, the ashes of the tarot card fluttered, blew away.

The arcade was dark, inside, the pinball machines lay dim and enigmatic as dust scribblings in a giant’s cave. The peep shows stood with Teddy Roosevelt and the Wright Brothers faintly smirking or just cranking up a wooden propeller. The witch sat in her case, her waxen eyes cauled. Then, suddenly, one eye glittered. A flashlight bobbed outside through the dusty arcade windows. A heavy figure lurched against the locked door, a key scrabbled into the lock. The door slammed open, stayed open. There was a sound of thick breathing.

“It’s only me, old girl,” said Mr. Black, swaying.

Outside on the street, coming along with his nose in a book, Douglas found Tom hiding in a door nearby.

“Shh!” said Tom. “It worked. The Keystone Kops, fifteen times; and when Mr. Black heard me drop all that money in, his eyes popped, he opened the machine, took out the pennies, threw me out and went across to the speak-easy for the magic philter.”

Douglas crept up and peered into the shadowy arcade and saw the two gorilla figures there, one not moving at all, the wax heroine in his arms, the other one standing stunned in the middle of the room, weaving slightly from side to side.

“Oh, Tom,” whispered Douglas, “you’re a genius. He’s just full of magic philter, ain’t he?”

“You can say that again. What did you find out?”

Douglas tapped the book and talked in a low voice. “Mme. Tarot, like I said, told all about death and destiny and stuff in rich folks’ parlors, but she made one mistake. She predicted Napoleon’s defeat and death to his face! So . . .”

Douglas’s voice faded as he looked again through the dusty window at that distant figure seated quietly in her crystal case.

“Secours,” murmured Douglas. “Old Napoleon just called in Mme. Tussaud’s waxworks and had them drop the Tarot Witch alive in boiling wax, and now . . .now . . .”

“Watch out, Doug, Mr. Black, in there! He’s got a club or something!”

This was true. Inside, cursing horribly, the huge figure of Mr. Black lurched. In his hand a camping knife seethed on the air six inches from the witch’s face.

“He’s picking on her because she’s the only human-looking thing in the whole darn joint,” said Tom. “He won’t do her no harm. He’ll fall over any second and sleep it off.”

“No, sir,” said Douglas. “He knows she warned us and we’re coming to rescue her. He doesn’t want us revealing his guilty secret, so maybe tonight he’s going to destroy her once and for all.”

“How could he know she warned us? We didn’t even know ourselves till we got away from here.”

“He made her tell, put coins in the machine; that’s one thing she can’t lie on, the cards, all them tarot skulls and bones. She just can’t help telling the truth and she gave him a card, sure, with two little knights on it, no bigger than kids, you see? That’s us, clubs in our hands, coming down the street.”

“One last time!” cried Mr. Black from the cave inside. “I’m. puttin’ the coin in. One last time now, dammit, tell me! Is this damn arcade ever goin’ to make money or do I declare bankruptcy? Like all women; sit there, cold fish, while a man starves! Gimme the card. There! Now, let me see.” He held up the card to the light.

“Oh, my gosh!” whispered Douglas. “Get ready.”

“No!” cried Mr. Black. “Liar! Liar! Take that!” He smashed his fist through the case. Glass exploded in a great shower of starlight, it seemed, and fell away in darkness. The witch sat naked, in the open air, reserved and calm, waiting for the second blow.

“No!” Douglas plunged through the door. “Mr. Black!”

“Doug!” cried Tom.

Mr. Black wheeled at Tom’s shout. He raised the knife blindly in the air as if to strike. Douglas froze. Then, eyes wide, lids blinking once, Mr. Black turned perfectly so he fell with his back toward the floor and took what seemed a thousand years to strike, his flashlight flung from his right hand, the knife scuttling away like a silverfish from the left.

Tom moved slowly in to look at the long-strewn figure in the dark. “Doug, is he dead?”

“No, just the shock of Mme. Tarot’s predictions. Boy, he’s got a scalded look. Horrible, that’s what the cards must have been.”

The man slept noisily on the floor.

Douglas picked up the strewn tarot cards, put them, trembling, in his pocket. “Come on, Tom, let’s get her out of here before it’s too late.”

“Kidnap her? You’re crazy!”

“You wanna be guilty of aiding and abetting an even worse crime? Murder, for instance?”

“For gosh sakes, you can’t kill a dam old dummy!”

But Doug was not listening. He had reached through the open case and now, as if she had waited for too many years, the wax Tarot Witch with a rustling sigh, leaned forward and fell slowly slowly down into his arms.

The town clock struck nine forty-five. The moon was high and filled all the sky with a warm but wintry light. The sidewalk was solid silver on which black shadows moved. Douglas moved with the thing of velvet and fairy wax in his arms, stopping to hide in pools of shadow under trembling trees, alone. He listened, looking back. A sound of running mice. Tom burst around the corner and pulled up beside him.

“Doug, I stayed behind. I was afraid Mr. Black was, well . . .then he began to come alive . . .swearing . . . Oh, Doug, if he catches you with his dummy! What will our folks think? Stealing!”

“Quiet!”

They listened to the moonlit river of street behind them. “Now, Tom, you can come help me rescue her, but you can’t if you say ’dummy’ or talk loud or drag along as so much dead weight.”

“I’ll help!” Tom assumed half the weight. “My gosh, she’s light.”

“She was real young when Napoleon . . .” Douglas stopped. “Old people are heavy. That’s how you tell.”

“But why? Tell me why all this running around for her, Doug. Why?”