An Owl Too Many (12 page)

“I suppose we ought to have called to say we were coming,” Helen remarked as she was turning out of the village onto the Lumpkinton Road.

“She’d only have told us not to bother,” said Peter. “You know how independent Winifred is. How’s that for bravado?”

“Excellent, darling. You must try saying it to her face sometime. I know Winifred’s independent but she’s also a great deal more vulnerable at the station than she was where she lived before. And there’s been so much hoo-ha about all that money of her grandfather’s, people may think she keeps it stacked in the corners like firewood. I do wish she’d get herself a great big, ugly watchdog. Or at least a yappy little one.”

“She’s afraid a dog would scare off the local fauna,” Peter objected.

“Then that must be about the only thing she is afraid of, as far as I’ve been able to make out. Winifred has this theory that being afraid is the most dangerous thing you can do.”

“She’s right, you know.”

“I suppose so.” Helen sounded a trifle irritated. “But it’s awfully hard on her friends. And it certainly didn’t work today for Viola Buddley. She’s seemed intrepid enough, the few times I’ve met her. Goodness knows what she’ll feel like after this. I hope you’re not going to have problems keeping your help out at the station.”

“So do I, now that you—phoo! Jane, please try to keep your tail out of my mouth. Now, as I was trying to say, that you mention it. We’ll just have to wait and see what develops. I expect if we had to, we could put a squad of students out there as bodyguards or caretakers. It would mean building them some kind of bunkhouse.”

“Two bunkhouses,” said Helen. “One for the hims and one for the hers. You know what Sieglinde’s like.”

“I do indeed. Maybe we could tack a couple of wings on the television station. That would probably be cheaper than putting up a whole new building, though I dread the thought of messing about any longer with those confounded blueprints. Tell me, Helen, how do you think Emory Emmerick worked up enough chutzpah to pass himself off as an employee of the Meadowsweet Construction Company? How did he know the real site engineer wasn’t going to show up some morning and crab his act?”

“The question, I assume, is rhetorical. Obviously Emmerick had inside information about when the real man was due to appear. As to how he found out, that’s another and tougher question. Didn’t you and Thorkjeld know?”

“No, my love, on these lengthy construction projects one tends to develop a sense of kismet. If the job keeps moving forward, as opposed to coming to lengthy and unexplained halts, one gets to feeling that’s all a reasonable person can expect. Precisely how and when things happen is the responsibility of the people who are being paid to run the show. So far, the Meadowsweet crew have kept on showing up and making a decent show of diligence, so we haven’t been sweating the small stuff.”

Jane was now evincing a desire to move from Peter’s shoulder to his knee. He assisted her descent and got her adjusted to their mutual satisfaction.

“All set now, Trouble? I don’t suppose, Helen, that it would be an earthshaking task for somebody bent on skullduggery to worm a piece of information that would hardly be considered top secret out of some Meadowsweet employee who has access to the scheduling. One merely strikes up an acquaintance and plies her or him with booze, blandishments, or baksheesh, depending on the circumstances and the persons involved. I could do it if I had to. You could do it better and faster, no doubt.”

“I’m sure I could.” Helen didn’t believe in false modesty. “But why?”

“Aye, there’s the rub. Drat. I just wish we could waltz into the station and meet Winifred rushing up to us with a mysterious black notebook written in code by the late Emory Emmerick and containing a nice, fat, juicy clue.”

“Shades of Franklin Scudder! Dream on, General Hannay.”

Peter took his wife’s suggestion literally and joined Jane in a catnap. He woke slightly refreshed and in some measure restored just about the time Helen turned off the road into the station’s parking lot.

They’d rather expected to find Winifred Binks and Knapweed Calthrop over at the house drinking dandelion coffee or perhaps one of Winifred’s more potent potations. In fact, the lights in the station lobby were still on and the two of them could be seen at the table, studying something that lay before them. They looked up as the car’s headlights shone in the window. Winifred Binks rose and came to the door. Knapweed was right on her heels, clutching the gavel.

“WHY, PETER! HAVEN’T YOU
had enough of us for one day? And Helen and Jane, too? What a pleasant surprise. We’re delighted to see you, I hope it’s not a duty call. Do put that gavel down, Knapweed, the Shandys aren’t going to attack us. Knapweed and I have committed a breach of the peace, Peter, though I’m not sure what we’re guilty of. Breaking and entering with intent, perhaps. We knew we ought to leave that car for the police to search but they didn’t come and they didn’t come. Finally we couldn’t stand it any longer, so we put Baggies over our hands in case of fingerprints and went rummaging. And what should we find slipped down behind the driver’s seat but somebody’s little black notebook. It appears to be written in code, but perhaps that’s just our ignorance. Want to see?”

“Need you ask?” said Peter. “This may be just what we’ve been praying for. You—er—kept the Baggies on while you turned the pages?”

“We didn’t have to. Knapweed got the inspired thought of turning them with those big tweezers he uses for arranging his botanical specimens. I couldn’t manage the tweezers, but he handles them like a surgeon.”

The young graduate student blushed. “It’s only a matter of practice. Bedstraws are such ticklish little dickenses. But they’re good company when you get to know them. Hi, kitty.”

Jane, who’d been rubbing against his left pant leg, took the “Hi, kitty” as an invitation to climb it. Knapweed set down the gavel and picked her off his jeans, then settled her comfortably in his arms. “Jane? Is that your name? Hold still, can’t you? I want to count your whiskers.”

“Great Scott, Helen, he’s one of us!” Peter exclaimed. “I should explain, Calthrop, that both my wife and I also have the habit of counting things. Jane has—er—, sorry, Calthrop. I shouldn’t deprive you of the pleasure of finding out for yourself.”

“Your count may be off anyway, dear,” Helen cautioned. “I found a stray whisker on the living-room sofa yesterday while I was tidying around. I can’t imagine why I bothered. Mrs. Lomax always—why on earth am I driveling on about Jane’s whiskers? Let’s have a look at that notebook.”

“By all means,” said Miss Binks. “We can’t make head nor tail of it, but you’re the expert at this sort of thing.
*
Here, sit down. Is that light strong enough for you?”

“It’s fine, but I can’t say it’s doing much good. Knapweed, would you mind turning the pages for me? Peter, what is this? Not shorthand, at least not any system I’ve ever seen. Not Greek or Arabic or Hebrew or Sanskrit or Cyrillic or demotic Egyptian, and certainly not hieroglyphics. I suppose we could fall back on the old relative-frequency system for starters. I do wish I’d brought volume five of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
with me.”

“But how were you to know you’d want it?” said her hostess. “What do you think we should do?”

“I think we ought to put this notebook right back where you found it,” Helen told her. “But first, why don’t we just run it page by page through your copy machine? Using Mr. Calthrop’s tweezers, of course, so we won’t smudge the pages. I hate to keep making you work, Mr. Calthrop.”

“Heck, I don’t mind a bit, but I wish you’d call me Knapweed. Everybody else does. Everybody who calls me anything at all, anyway. Would it be okay if I made two copies instead of one? I’d love to have a stab myself; I’ve never tried to unravel a code.”

“Nor have I,” said Winifred Binks. “That’s an excellent idea, Knapweed. The more of us who try, the likelier somebody is to succeed. Don’t you agree, Peter?”

Peter didn’t know whether to agree or not. As Knapweed had already tweezed on to the notebook, however, and was carrying it over to the copy machine, he saw little point in raising a fuss. Knapweed could always get it back again, and make himself as many copies as he wanted after Miss Binks had gone to bed. Peter wasn’t about to sit out here with the skunks and raccoons all night, keeping watch on that rented car. He doubted very much that Fanshaw would try to sneak back here and pick it up. The man would be a fool to come anywhere near the station again, unless the notebook was his own and he didn’t dare leave it for somebody else to unravel.

“I wish I knew which of those two dropped this thing,” he told Miss Binks. “We have to assume Emmerick and Fanshaw were a team, but what the—er—dickens were they working at?”

“Good question,” she replied. “In view of what happened to Viola this morning, we must further assume that the work is going on regardless of the fact that Mr. Emmerick is no longer with us. What bothers me most, Peter, is the way these impostors keep popping up. First Emmerick comes along pretending to be what he obviously wasn’t. Then Emmerick dies and Fanshaw appears, apparently not realizing Emmerick is dead. We get him nicely disposed of, then some third person kidnaps Viola. Then that lawyer shows up and gets Fanshaw out of jail. I ask myself, where’s it going to end?”

“And well you may, Winifred.” There, by George, he’d done it! “I did tell you Fanshaw was out of the lockup, but I don’t believe I filled you in on the details. What happened was that the lawyer was with him in the cell when I arrived at the station. He came out and Ottermole had a few—er—words with him, then he went off and Ottermole and Dorkin went to see whether Fanshaw might need to be—er—taken out of his cell. I was searching through Emmerick’s effects for possible clues at the time and didn’t pay much attention. After a while, though, I realized things were quiet in the lockup, so I thought I’d better check. I found the coop open, the bird flown, and Ottermole and Dorkin sitting together on the cot playing cat’s cradle and thinking it was checkers.”

“But why?”

Peter shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. As best we could piece the story together, Fanshaw had hypnotized both of them at the same time by waving a gold coin on a chain in front of their noses.”

“That is simply incredible. You’re quite sure they weren’t shamming?”

“No question. I know Fred and Budge well enough, they were completely out of the picture. It took some doing to bring them around and I’m not at all sure some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion mightn’t still have been in force after I left them. Such things can happen, I believe. The subject coasts along for days behaving just as usual, then all of a sudden he starts walking on his hands or eating peas with his knife.”

“Ugh! What a dreadful thought. Then do you think it was safe to leave them alone?”

“I didn’t. The night officer came on and they went home, Budge Dorkin to meet his aunt’s new boyfriend and Ottermole to play his nightly game of cops and robbers with his children. We’ll simply have to wait and see what develops.”

“Like Cronkite Swope with his photographs.”

“Good thinking, Winifred.” There, he’d done it again. More smoothly this time, it was really quite easy. “I called Swope and he says there’s not one decent likeness of Fanshaw in the lot. He’s either out of focus or turned away from the camera.”

“How uncanny!”

“Or canny, depending on how you look at it. My opinion is that Fanshaw must have had plenty of experience in such matters to have shown that much presence of mind. How’s it coming, Calthrop?”

“Done, I think. I’m just checking.”

The botanist was still tweezing pages, but drawing only blanks; it wasn’t until the last page that he came across anything else. This was not more of those odd symbols, but merely a rough drawing of a stemmed dish bearing a few roundish doodles that might have been meant for apples.

“Well, well,” Peter exclaimed.

“Well what?” Helen demanded.

“See this?”

He pointed to the drawing Knapweed had just copied. Helen sniffed.

“Artistically undistinguished, in my opinion. Am I to gather that it has some kind of symbolic significance?”

“You might wish to consider that Winifred is, as she just learned today, a major stockholder in a firm called Golden Apples, which is owned and managed by people named Compote. What interests me particularly is that I found a similar doodle on one of Emmerick’s papers.”

“Then you think we can assume this notebook belonged to Emmerick?”

“I don’t think we’re in a position yet to take anything for granted, but at least it’s something. Good work, Calthrop. May I have a set of those copies?”

Knapweed handed them over. “So now you want me to put the notebook back where we found it?”

“If you’d be so good,” Peter replied. “Still handling it with your tweezers, though I’m sure I don’t have to remind you.”

“But if that man Fanshaw is loose again, what’s to stop him from coming to get it?”

“Firstly, if the notebook belonged to Emmerick, as we may infer from that doodle, Fanshaw may not even know it exists. Secondly, if he does know, he may not be aware that it’s not among Emmerick’s effects, which he hasn’t had a chance to examine. Ottermole’s collected some of them from Emmerick’s room at the inn and the state police took the rest from his pockets at the morgue. Thirdly, if the notebook’s really Fanshaw’s and he runs the risk of coming to look for it in the car, we’ll know for sure that it’s important.”

“Hey, you’re right! Maybe I ought to keep watch overnight in case he shows up.”

“Rather you than I, young man. It won’t much matter if Fanshaw does steal the thing back, now that we have copies. You know, I’m wondering if this alleged code is in fact some kind of engineer’s shorthand, it looks to have been worked out by a pipe fitter. I’ll ask one of the chaps in the engineering department to have a look.”

“You might also try to find out whether it may be some kind of computer language,” Winifred Binks suggested. “Most things are nowadays.”

”Too true.”