Buster escapes by cutting his handcuff chain with corrosive liquid

Buster escapes by cutting his handcuff chain with corrosive liquid when Leland Gaunt equips him with a disguise, a bottle of caustic liquid, and a vehicle, enabling him to flee moments before the police find Myrtle Keeton’s body. The episode makes escape both a practical operation and a measure of Gaunt’s control: Buster follows a carefully arranged plan, while the authorities search the house without recognizing the disguise or the inconspicuous object that may have offered another clue.

Preparation and disguise

After Gaunt speaks to him and Buster sinks into the hypnotic state Gaunt can apparently induce at will, Buster leaves his house five minutes later. A storm is approaching. He wears a light jacket over his T-shirt and hides the hand still wearing a cuff in his pocket. Halfway down the block, he finds the van Gaunt said would be there: bright yellow, nearly windowless, and marked on both sides with the logo of a Portland television station. Its conspicuous paint is intended to draw attention away from the driver.

Buster checks both directions before getting in. The keys are under the seat, as Gaunt promised, and a paper shopping bag lies on the passenger seat. It contains a blonde wig, wire-rimmed glasses associated with a younger professional, and a small glass bottle. The disguise changes Buster’s sense of how he looks: in the van’s rearview mirror, he thinks the shaggy wig and clear lenses make him appear decades younger, like someone who could work for the television station. The transformation is not just concealment; it gives him a plausible identity for the vehicle Gaunt has arranged.

Cutting the chain

The bottle’s contents smell to Buster like a melting tractor battery, and tendrils of smoke rise from its mouth when he opens it. He recognizes the danger and handles it carefully. Sitting in the van, he tucks the empty cuff under his right thigh, pulls the chain taut, and pours the dark, viscous liquid onto the steel just below the cuff on his wrist, taking care not to spill it on his skin.

The liquid immediately smokes and bubbles against the chain. A few drops land on the rubber floor mat, which bubbles as well; smoke and a horrid frying smell rise in the van. When the chain has weakened, Buster pulls the empty cuff from under his thigh, hooks his fingers through it, and yanks. The chain parts easily. He discards it and accepts the remaining bracelet on his wrist: the chain and swinging cuff had been the real impediment. He then starts the van and drives away.

Escape and the discovery at home

Less than three minutes later, Seaton Thomas arrives at the Keeton home in a Castle County Sheriff’s car. He finds Myrtle Keeton sprawled partly in and partly out of the doorway between the garage and the kitchen. Four State Police units soon join the investigation. Their search of the house, from top to bottom, is aimed at finding Buster or any indication of where he has gone, but it begins after he has already driven away in the prepared van.

The timing sharpens the contrast between Gaunt’s foreknowledge and the officers’ belated arrival. Gaunt has supplied the vehicle, the hidden keys, the disguise, and the chemical means of escape; the police reach the house only after Buster is gone and Myrtle’s death has become the immediate focus of their search. They do not give a second glance to the game on the study desk. It is old, dirty, and apparently broken, the sort of object that might have come from a poor relation’s attic. Its neglect underlines how easily an unremarkable object can escape notice amid a search for more obvious evidence.

Significance

The escape is a compact demonstration of how Gaunt’s influence turns an instruction into a sequence of practical steps. Buster does not simply break free by force: he uses the supplied chemical, follows the staged route to the van, and takes advantage of the delay before the officers discover the scene. The corrosive liquid converts a restraint into a brief, dangerous task, while the wig, glasses, and television-station markings make departure possible under a manufactured appearance of ordinary work.

The scene also links Buster’s flight directly to the consequences left behind. He drives away with one cuff still on his wrist, while Myrtle lies at the threshold of the garage and kitchen and the police begin searching for him. His escape therefore does not resolve the violence at the Keeton home; it carries him out of the house and into Gaunt’s larger plan, leaving the investigation to begin in his absence.