The journalist was mystified. He sat down to watch, and to discover the reason.
Two of the rooks had left the circle, and were diving to earth. As they came nearer he saw that their wings hung limp. They fell a hundred yards away, and he ran over to them. They were dead.
Picking one up, it was warm, the sunlight gleaming on the hues of its wings, glinting green and purple. Their backs were bare of feathers, and gaping with a terrible wound. He was more mystified, then thought that for some inexplicable reason the other rooks had pecked them to death. But why? He was more puzzled as he thought. He was well known for his puzzles.
Looking up, he saw that the circle had swung higher than ever. Gradually it drifted away, silent.
The journalist, who had some knowledge of natural history and ornithology, returned to London the next day and wrote the incident up as a “news story.” But he could give no explanation. The editor was sceptical; said that it was no good. He laughed, and mentioning that it was “punk,” promptly “spiked” it.
Meanwhile something was about to happen in London.
It was half-past five on Saturday afternoon. The journalist, who worked with a newspaper that went to press on Saturday night for publication on Sunday, was passing St. Paul’s Cathedral. He stopped to look at the pigeons strutting and searching for crumbs upon the worn paving stones. He found two months continuous work to be most exhausting. He still was puzzled about the dead rooks. He had been to every paper in London with his “rook story,” but no one would print it. He even got laughed at as a “fake merchant”—a tribute to imagination, but damning as a reputation.
Like chaff before a blast of wind the pigeons scattered. His paper was rumpled by the agitated draught caused by their departure.
Looking up to the dome he saw a flock of about fifty pigeons wheeling in steady flight near the cross at the top. A speck fell with a suddenness that reminded him of a shot aeroplane: like a plunging halbert-head it was; there was a puff of feathers dancing and fluttering—the flock scattered, dived to earth, anywhere, anyhow, and the dark halbert-head became outlined against the sky, perched on the gilt cross that glistened in the afternoon sun.
Then he knew that it was a peregrine falcon, and thrilling with the sight, took a taxi-cab back to Fleet Street (he was young and keen) and “wrote the story up.”