An Owl Too Many Read Online Free

net with our flashlight.”
    “I see. Let’s have a couple more lanterns over here.”
    Two of Haverford’s men stepped forward. The battery lanterns made a big difference, it was easy enough to see the dried blood and the gaping slit.
    “Commando tactics,” Haverford remarked. “Neat job. We understand from Dr. Svenson that his name was Emory Emmerick and he was an engineer helping to set up a television station for the college. Had you known Mr. Emmerick long, Professor Shandy?”
    “No, not at all until he showed up last week and introduced himself to the steering committee as the site engineer. We were surprised to see him, as a matter of fact, because there was still nothing for him to do and won’t be, I gather, until the subcontractors are ready to pour the foundations. However, Emmerick seemed to feel it was important for him to get the lie of the land, as it were. We assumed he knew what he was doing.”
    “‘We’ meaning this steering committee you mentioned? Who’s on the committee?”
    “Of the present company, Professor Binks and myself. Plus some other members of the faculty, of course.”
    “Including Dr. Svenson?”
    “Certainly. As president of the college, Dr. Svenson is an ex-officio member of all committees.”
    “I see. How well have you people been getting along with Mr. Emmerick?”
    “Well enough, I suppose.”
    “You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”
    “It’s just that, since he couldn’t get on with his own job, he tended to be a bit too ready to get involved in other people’s,” Peter replied.
    “Such as how?”
    “Such as inviting himself along tonight, for one thing,” Winifred Binks put in. “Mr. Emmerick seemed to think owl counting was some sort of campus frolic instead of serious ornithological research. Even before that quite terrifying grand finale with the fireworks, he’d been talking too much and too loudly and offering stupid observations that showed he knew virtually nothing about owls. Am I not right, Professor Stott?”
    “One is loath to speak ill of the dead, but there remains the fact that he confused Aegolius acadica acadica with Aegolius funerea richardsoni,” Stott confirmed in a tone from which he had not succeeded in eliminating a note of rebuke. “Not being myself a member of the field-station steering committee, I had held small converse with Mr. Emmerick before this evening. My initial impression was that his acquaintance would not be one I should care to cultivate further.”
    “So what you’re saying is that Mr. Emmerick had already started making enemies at the college. Can you give me any names, Professor Shandy?”
    “Of course I can’t.” Peter was beginning to fray around the edges. “Emmerick hadn’t made enemies. We thought of him as a pest, not a menace. We knew he wasn’t going to be around long, and we also knew that if he got to be too much of a nuisance, it was quite within our power to ship him back to his bosses and get them to send somebody who’d mind his own business and leave us to manage ours as we saw fit; which we’d certainly have done if he’d survived tonight’s caper. Er—speaking of business, I expect Professor Binks told you that she and I searched the tree.”
    “She did mention it. I assume what she meant was that you shone a flashlight up through the branches.”
    “Oh no. We climbed the tree and shone the light—er—laterally.”
    “You climbed the tree?” Haverford looked to be about thirty-five years old, and a few inches over six feet. He smiled tolerantly down on their two graying heads. “How did you manage that?”
    “Easily enough.” Winifred Binks reached up to the same branch she’d used the first time, swung herself over it in a neat flip, and was forty feet in the air before Haverford could wipe the grin off his face. “If you’re coming up, Peter,” she called from the top, “bring one of those lanterns so we can take a better look this time.”
    Peter held out his hand.