The Second Book of Lankhmar

rutching sound turned her attention back to Threesie. "No, do not open the other drawers," she directed. "It would not be there. Just search the top one thoroughly and find it. Set out the contents one by one on top of the chest if necessary."
           "Yes, demoiselle."
           Hisvet caught Foursie's eye again, rolled hers toward busy Threesie, sketched another shrug, and commented confidingly, "This could become a tiresome annoyance, you know, a true weariness. No, girl, don't bob your head. That's all right on Threesie, but it's not your style. Incline it once, demurely."
           "Yes, mistress." Her single nod was shy as a virgin princess's.
           "How are you doing, Threesie?"
           The brunette turned to face them. Her reply was barely loud enough to cross the room. "Demoiselle, I must confess myself defeated."
           After a rather long pause, Hisvet said reflectively, "That could be quite bothersome for you, Threesie, you know. As senior maid present, you would be wholly responsible for any deficiencies, disappearances, or thefts. Think about it."
           After another pause, she sighed and said, holding out the empty glass, "Foursie, fetch me the springy implement of correction."
           The blonde inclined her head, took the glass, and walking somewhat more slowly, returned to the low table, set down the glass, refilled it, and reached across to seize the magically suspended white whip, which she lifted with a little twist and bore off with the glass, thereby solving a minor mystery for the Mouser. The whip had simply been hanging on a hook on the wall. But since the wall had been and was again invisible to him, so was the hook protruding from it.
           He felt a stirring of interest in the scene he spied on from his confining point of vantage, and was duly grateful to have his mind taken a little off his own troubles. He knew something of Hisvet's ways and could guess the next developments, or at least speculate rewardingly. Dark-haired Threesie seemed well cast as the villain or culprit of this triangular piece. Leaning back against the chest of drawers and scowling, she looked a bird of ill omen in her uniform black tunic, though the large circular alabaster buttons going down the front added a comic note. Foursie did her kneeling trick a second time. Hisvet accepted the whip and replenished drink, saying graciously, "Thank you, my dear. I feel much better with these both by me. Well, Threesie?"
           "I am thinking, demoiselle," that one said, "and it comes to me that when I entered this room Foursie was crouched where I stand now with the drawer open I have just searched thoroughly, and she was rummaging around in it. She pushed it shut at once, but may well have taken somewhat from it, I realize now, and hid about her person."
           "Demoiselle, that's not true!" Foursie protested, turning pale. "The drawer was never open, nor I at it."
           "She is a vicious little liar, dear mistress," Threesie shot back. "Mark how she blanches!"
           "Hush, girls," Hisvet reproved. "I have thought of a simple way to settle this most unseemly dispute. Threesie dear, had Foursie opportunity to hide the Opener elsewhere in the room after she took it, if she did? As I recall, I entered shortly after you did."
           "No, mistress, she had not."
           "Well, then." Hisvet said, smiling. "Threesie, come here. Foursie dear, strip off your tunic, so she may search you thoroughly."
           "Demoiselle!" the blonde uttered reproachfully. "You would not shame me so."
           "No shame at all," Hisvet assured her ingenuously, lifting her silver eyebrows. "Why, child, suppose I were entertaining a lover, I might very well — probably would — have you and Threesie disrobe, so as not to embarrass him, or at all events make us both feel conspicuous. Or we might have the whim to ask one of you or both to join in our play under direction. Frix understood these things, as I hope Threesie does. Frix was incomparable. Not even Twosie comes close to matching her. But as you know, Frix managed to work out her term of service, discharge the geas my father set upon her. There's never been another Onesie, and that's why."
           Both maids nodded agreement, though somewhat grimly in their two different styles. They'd each heard somewhat too much about the Incomparable Onesie.
           The Mouser was