An Owl Too Many by Charlotte MacLeod

Cripes, is Edmund okay?”
    “He’s curled up in your file basket pounding his ear as usual. Never mind Edmund, Ottermole. Try to concentrate on what I’m saying. The lawyer came out and had some sharp words about his client’s accommodations. You put him in his place with a bit of snappy repartee.”
    “I did? What’d I say?”
    “Let me finish. You then told me to go ahead and search Emmerick’s luggage while you and Budge came in here to check on the prisoner. I became engrossed in my search; then I realized that you and Budge were taking a long time in here and being awfully quiet about it. So I looked in and found the two of you alone here on the cot trying to play cat’s cradle with that hunk of string. And making a damned poor fist of it, I may add. I asked what you were doing and you said you were playing checkers.
    “So what? Maybe I was giving you some snappy repartee.”
    “Ottermole, you were not engaging in snappy repartee, you were zonked out of your skull. That bastard hypnotized you and Budge and turned you into a couple of zombies. Temporarily, I hope. You seem to be coming out of it, more or less, but look at Budge. Budge, do you know who I am?”
    “Huh?” said Budge.
    “There, Ottermole, see what I mean? Drink your coffee, Budge. Maybe it will jolt you out of your trance. Here, take a sip.”
    “Ugh!”
    Could this be a glimmer of intelligence? Peter coaxed him to take another.
    “Do I have to?” The words came slowly and mournfully, but at least they came.
    “Yes,” barked Ottermole. “That’s an order, Dorkin.”
    Shuddering, the young cop obeyed. His eyes glazed over, then snapped to awareness. “Police brutality! My mother keeps telling me I ought to apply for a job at the box factory. The hours are better and so’s the pay. What are we sitting in the lockup for, Chief? And what happened to Mr. Fanshaw? Did the lawyer bail him out?”
    “Fanshaw?” Ottermole looked blank again, then made a brave attempt to cover up. “Tell him, Professor.”
    Peter told. Budge was awed.
    “Wow! A real master criminal. Hey, I remember now. Fanshaw took this shiny thing out of his pocket and started waving it back and forth. You couldn’t help looking at it, it was so shiny and—I know! It was a gold coin, a great big gold coin with an eagle on it. It was on a gold chain with a little ring to hang it by. And it kept going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and—”
    “Budge! Wake up!”
    “Huh? Oh. Gosh, Professor, for a second there I felt as if I could still see that—back and forth, back and forth, back—”
    Peter leaned forward and gave Dorkin a fairly determined slap on the cheek. “Budge, you are not going back to sleep. You are awake, do you hear me? Awake, drat it!”
    “Ouch. Okay, Professor, if you say so. See, I’m awake. Which way did Fanshaw go? We’ve got to get him back. Back and forth—”
    “Budge!”
    “Finish your coffee,” growled Ottermole. “God, I can’t remember a damned thing. How long were we in here before Fanshaw started with the back and forth, back and—”
    “Cut it out, Ottermole, you’ll put Budge to sleep again,” said Peter. “Budge, can you answer the question?”
    “I think it must have been right after we went in. I sort of remember he had the—the you-know-what, I better not even say it—in his hand. He opened his hand and it hung down and started to swing and—and I want to get out of here.”
    “Good idea.”
    Peter took Dorkin and Ottermole by an arm apiece and pulled them up off the cot to which they’d been rooted. Fanshaw’s orders must still have had some power, he thought, but getting them out into the office seemed to break the spell. Ottermole checked his daily report and found it filled in with the details concerning a man calling himself Francis Fanshaw, who’d been brought in under arrest by Acting Deputy P. Shandy and detained in the lockup pending further investigation in the death of Emory