An Owl Too Many (22 page)

“
Voilà, monsieur. Bon appétit.
”

“Funny,” Svenson growled through a mouthful of muffin. “What next?”

“For you, three more muffins. For Winifred and me, a visit to the Compotes.”

Peter took it upon himself to explain their plans, since Winifred had nobly begun cleaning out the frying pan with paper towels and salt, there being no water left except in the river. The president nodded.

“Go with you.”

“Sorry, Captain, but you’ll have to stay here and go down with the ship. Or not, as I fervently hope the case will be.” From above came one mellow bong of the church’s bell. “The tocsin hath sounded. Enjoy your eggs. Forget the pan, Winifred, we’re due on the sandbags.”

F
RED SMITH WAS PUNCTUAL
. Two minutes later, Peter and Winifred were with him on the road to Briscoe. It was as well they’d left early; tree limbs were down, puddles were everywhere. The worst hazard was the mass of dead leaves, reduced by the rain to a dark-brown pulp slippery as ice and even more treacherous. They needed that full half hour to reach the ugly sprawl of buff-painted concrete which was, Peter judged from the gleam in Winifred’s eye, about to get a thorough image-lifting.

“This used to be a brewery,” Smith told them. He hadn’t done much talking so far along the way, nor had his passengers tried to make conversation lest they distract him from his driving. “Bill and Dodie picked the place on account of its water, there are natural springs up on the hill. Why don’t I let you two out here? Bill and Dodie must be inside, that’s their old station wagon parked by the main entrance. Just walk right in and holler if the girl’s not at the front desk. Watch your step getting out.”

“Thanks very much, Smith. We really appreciate this.”

Peter got out first and held the door for Winifred, who was emancipated enough not to take umbrage at small masculine courtesies. She was plainly thrilled by the prospect of acquainting the Compotes with her plans for Golden Apples; Peter felt a qualm. This business had been Bill and Dodie’s dream, their own creation, even though they’d brought it into being with old man Binks’s grubstake. How were they going to feel about having another Binks blow in out of the storm laden with the wherewithal to achieve what all their years of dedication and hard work hadn’t been able to pull off?

But it wouldn’t be Winifred’s achievement. He hoped to God the Compotes would have sense enough to realize that. If they hadn’t stuck to their guns on quality and customer satisfaction all these years, Winifred wouldn’t be offering them a plugged nickel now, much less flinging open the bottomless Binks coffers and inviting them to dig in.

Anyway, the moment of truth was at hand. Winifred sailed through the door head up and tail a-rising. The lobby was large and somewhat barren-looking; its only point of interest was a quite ridiculously ornate desk that Peter guessed had been a housewarming present from Grandfather Binks. Behind it sat a youngish woman in a yellow coverall who reminded him vaguely of somebody or other, he couldn’t think whom. Winifred was beaming at her like a fairy godmother.

“Good morning. I’m Winifred Binks to see Mr. or Mrs. Compote, or preferably both.”

The receptionist did not beam back. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No, I found myself in the neighborhood unexpectedly and thought I’d take advantage of the opportunity to call.”

“You can’t see them without an appointment.”

This wasn’t sitting well with Winifred. “Nonsense, of course I can. I assume this is their office.” She moved purposefully toward the door behind the desk. “If you won’t announce me, I shall do it myself.”

“No! You can’t!” The woman—by George, she was a big one—rushed in front of Winifred, spread-eagled herself with her back to the door, and began screaming. “Help! Help! Hurry!”

The door was hurled open from inside. A man’s face appeared above her shoulder, long, tanned, thatched above with gingery hair.

“Pipe down, Elvira! What the heck’s the matter?”

“She’s trying to get in!”

“Who is?”

“Her!”

“Her, who? Stand aside, can’t you?”

“No! No! No!”

Her shrieks had reached Wagnerian intensity. The man, even taller than she, gave the visitors a look that was angry, bewildered, and, above all, embarrassed.

“Elvira, what the hell’s got into you? Dodie, come here! She’s having a fit or something. I’m sorry, ma’am!” He was having to shout, the receptionist was hooting like the wreck of the Old Ninety-Seven by now.

Winifred spied a water cooler in the lobby, rushed over to it, brought back a cupful of ice water, and dashed it straight in Elvira’s face. The woman blinked, but kept right on screaming. By now Dodie, as she must be, had grabbed her by the shoulders from behind and was shaking her like a dust mop.

“Elvira, stop it! Get out of this doorway. Bill, can’t you shut her up somehow? Elvira, for God’s sake!”

By brute force, the two Compotes managed to force their crazed receptionist away from the office door. This only made matters worse. Elvira sprang at Winifred like a lunging tigress and would have knocked her to the floor if the heiress hadn’t been so nippy on her feet. The Compotes grabbed her, one by each arm, and held on like grim death. They were neither of them small, but she swung them around as if they’d been kittens.

“Slap her face,” panted Dodie.

“Gladly.” Winifred obliged. It hadn’t the slightest effect.

Peter had been standing aside, taking no part in the struggle, doing some fast cogitating. Light dawned. He drew from Fanshaw’s pocket the golden coin on its golden chain and began swinging it back and forth in front of Elvira’s engorged, convulsed face.

“Watch the coin, Elvira. Back and forth, back and forth. Keep watching, Elvira. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.”

Reluctantly, then avidly, Elvira’s eyes followed the glittering disk. Her yelling died away, her muscles grew slack.

“Relax, Elvira. Go to sleep. Sleep, sleep.”

She slumped to the floor, her mouth fell open, her eyes shut. She breathed slowly, deeply. She slept.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” Bill was wearing a yellow coverall, too; he wiped the left sleeve across his brow. “That’s the cussedest thing I ever saw.”

“Elvira seemed like such a nice person,” moaned, his wife. “Of course we don’t know her all that well, she’s only been with us a month or so.”

Dodie was a head shorter than her husband but, from the set of her chin, she was in no way subservient to him or anybody else. There was gray in her hair but her skin was clear, her cheeks were rosy, her eyes bright blue and wide open. The yellow coverall became her nicely. She looked like the sort who smiled a lot; right now her attractive face was troubled. “What in the world do you suppose got into her?”

Peter was still holding the twenty-dollar gold piece by its chain. “I believe this may be the answer. It belongs to a man who calls himself Fanshaw, among other things. From the way she reacted just now, I’d say he used it on her before planting her here as his spy, to hypnotize her and program her to keep you apart from Winifred Binks at any cost. This is Winifred, by the way.”

“Yes, and I’m delighted to meet you,” said the major stockholder. “I assume you two must be the Compotes. As you perhaps remember, both I and my lawyer have phoned during the past couple of days, trying to make an appointment with you. I’m sure you had good reasons not to return our calls.”

Dodie and Bill exchanged puzzled glances. “The only reason I can think of,” said Dodie, “is that we never got the messages. So you’re Mr. Binks’s granddaughter! We’ve been wondering whether we’d ever get to meet you.”

“The only reason you didn’t is that I had no idea there was any connection between us until just this past Saturday, when I met with my trust officer. You might be interested to know that I’d already instructed him to divert some of my funds to your company. I was familiar with your excellent products, I’d made a careful study of your operation, and I’d come to the conclusion that you were precisely the sort of company that deserved my wholehearted support. It was and is a source of immense gratification to me that we are in fact associates.”

“Us, too,” said Dodie somewhat numbly.

Winifred smiled. “My reason for wishing to see you is that, while I have no wish to interfere with your actual operations even if I had the expertise to do so, which I certainly haven’t, I do have some ideas on marketing and sales promotion that I’d like to lay before you. Along with the offer of sufficient funds to carry them out, needless to say. That’s why I took the liberty of barging past your dragoness and setting off this dreadful row, for which I most humbly beg your pardon, but I don’t suppose I’d ever have got to reach you if I hadn’t. Do you suppose we ought to put Elvira on a couch or somewhere?”

“I’d be inclined to leave her as she is,” said Peter. “If we try to move her before she’s had a chance to sleep it off, she might go into another tantrum. I don’t know anything about hypnosis.”

“You sure had me fooled,” said Bill. “I had you figured for an expert.”

“No, it’s just that I had the chance to observe a couple of other people on whom Fanshaw had worked the same trick. Fortunately I also happen at the moment to be wearing Fanshaw’s suit and he hadn’t got around to emptying his pockets. Look, we have a lot to talk about. Why don’t we make ourselves comfortable?”

“Sure thing, come right on in.”

Dodie led the way into what must be the executive office, it looked to Peter more like his late Aunt Effie’s back sitting room. Along with a flat-topped golden oak desk that still had some of its varnish, there were a swivel chair that probably squeaked, a maple spring rocker and settee covered in badly faded chintz, a goosenecked desk lamp, one of those spidery black iron floor lamps with a yellowed parchment shade that everybody who couldn’t afford anything flossier used to have back in the thirties, a few rag rugs, and a great many photographs, some in frames, some thumbtacked to the walls. There was even a matronly black parlor stove with a coal hod sitting beside it and a kettle steaming on top. On the rug closest to the stove lay a Boston terrier, gray around the muzzle, wheezing gently as he slumbered.

“Tiger’s our watchdog,” Bill explained. “Haul up and set, folks. You take the rocking chair, Winifred, that’s where your grandfather always liked to sit. He was an interesting old fellow, always had some new bee in his bonnet. We got a kick out of having him around. Gosh, it’s good to see you in his place, Winifred. You too, er—”

“Oh, I’m sorry. This is my good friend Professor Peter Shandy from Balaclava Agricultural College. I’m also on the faculty there, as you probably didn’t know,” Winifred was adding with naive pride when the door opened and yet another woman in one of the yellow coveralls that were evidently standard wear at Golden Apples bustled in with a handful of letters. She wasn’t young, but she bounced along like a ten-year-old.

“Nor rain, nor squish, nor standing around half the night holding up sacks for the boys to sling sand into stays this swift courier in her appointed rounds. Here’s your mail. Oops, sorry, didn’t know we had visitors. Say, did you know Elvira’s stretched out on the lobby floor, snoring worse than Tiger? I suppose she was up all night working on the sandbags, poor thing, but it’s not like her. Elvira’s always acted so proper. Hadn’t we better bring her in here and put her on the settee?”

“No,” said Bill, “if she’s that tuckered out we’d better just let her sleep. I guess we ought to put a blanket or something over her. Dodie, maybe you’d like to do that so Mae can get on with her work. Thanks for the mail, Mae. Hope it’s not all bills this time.”

“Mae’s a great one for mothering everybody,” he added after she’d left. “Nice woman, she’s been with us ever since we started. Say, Winifred, here’s a letter from your lawyer. Mind if I open it now?”

“No, please do. I expect that’s merely a request for an appointment, since he hadn’t been allowed to reach you by telephone.”

Bill ripped open the envelope, using a somewhat prissy celluloid paper knife molded in the shape of a winsome tot with a bow in her hair, clutching an even winsomer pussycat with a bow around its neck. Catching Peter’s cocked eyebrow, he grinned.

“Family heirloom. My grandmother brought it home from the movies one Bank Night back during the Depression. She was so stuck on Ramon Navarro that my grandpop tried to sue him for alienation of affections. Say, what’s this?”

His eyes narrowed, his jaw turned to solid rock. “Winifred, it says here you want out.”

“What? Let me see that.”

Winifred was not, after all, too well-bred to snatch. “Why, this is outrageous. Whatever can he have been thinking of? Peter, you were there, you heard my instructions. I made myself perfectly clear, did I not?”

“Clear as a bell. This past Saturday morning,” Peter explained to the Compotes, “Winifred had a meeting with Debenham, who’s been her family lawyer for many years, and a man named Sopwith, who’s the new trust officer for the Binks estate. President Svenson and I sat in on the meeting. Winifred is ceding a portion of her estate to the college in order to establish a field station which will also include a television station. Her financial concerns therefore are very much ours, aside from the fact that she’s a personal friend and we don’t want to see her taken for a ride.”

“So?” Bill Compote was still wary.

“So, as they were going through her various holdings, she told Sopwith to sell some shares her grandfather had bought in a company called Lackovites, with which you’re doubtless familiar, and invest the proceeds in Golden Apples.”

“My reason, as I said at the time,” Winifred added, “was that I had studied both companies’ operations and found that Golden Apples has a superb record for quality and honesty but a rather feeble one in sales promotion, if you’ll forgive me for saying so; whereas the Lackovites people are superb merchandisers but their products are trash and I want no part of them. When I learned how strong my financial interest in Golden Apples is, I resolved to become personally involved in implementing a more aggressive merchandising program. That’s why I instructed Mr. Debenham to arrange a meeting with you. There was absolutely no question of my asking you to buy me out, even if—er—”