"Now," said he, "shall I show ye all 'ow these things are done? Step by step, unbeknownst to others? Ah! It's worth knowing! Look 'ere," and he began, their interest rising as their blood began to move again: "You mayn't see it, but I see it, here on this parky floor." He stooped down and tapped it with his finger. "Little marks. Little marks."
There were no little marks—but no matter. He had done his best to suggest them. The Professor greatly helped them by his folly.
"Yes! I see! Oh! Yes! Most interesting! I see them now!"
"And where does they lead? Why, to the winder. Then what did I say to myself? I ses, 'A bird! A daw!' And mark you, gentlemen—ladies and gentlemen, I mean—I didn't come to that blindly, either. For you'll pardon me, but I know what you'd all said."
The guests looked—or at least, most of them did—at their host. But he was modestly regarding the carpet.
"I know as 'ow you 'ad, all or most of you, felt suspected like and might well enough think you could each o' ye be certain which o' ye it was. And ye were wrong," he continued, wagging his head solemnly. "Orl wrong! It was but an innocent bird. Or a thievish bird. Any'ow—a bird. That's what it was—a bird. When I 'eard of your confusion from our good host here"—and again Mr. de Bohun looked anyhow—"I says to meself, 'They're innocent, they are!' That was my first clue. Orl innocent," he emphasized cheerily, nodding in a nice heartening way to McTaggart, the Professor and young Galton, the last of whom said, almost audibly, to Vic, "The stinker!" and to whom Vic whispered back, "Well, he found it, anyhow!"
"Orl innocent," went on Mr. Collop. "Orl as white as the driven snow. And 'oo set things right and proved you so? Why, yours truly.... First, arter I'd thought 'ard orl night, I looks by the first white o' morning at the parky—and sure enough I sees them faint prints on the wax, like: an' them near the winder. What are the birds as thieves? Why, daws! Now, ladies and gentlemen, daws 'as claws; talons, ye may call 'em, of a 'ighly partic'lar kind. It's our business in my trade to know orl we can—and I can tell a daw's claws from any other claws, or paws ... any other in the wide world.
"So wot does I do? In this same early morning, afore any one of ye were up—at any rate, afore any of yer had showed themselves, I was out trailing. Sure enough, there I found where the bird had gone, for I marked his prints on the snow. When I found where the bird 'ad 'opped to, I follered to where he'd sat on the air. When I found where he'd taken the air, what does I do? Did I say to myself, ''E 'as flown far, far away; give up the search, William Collop? You are proven right, but the hem'rald will not be seen again by mortal eye.' Did I despair thus? No, not I! I thinks to myself, knowing the habits of birds better than most—we 'ave to know such things in our trade—he 'as put it near by, so's to be able to come and gloat on it. They love to go and gloat on what they 'ave taken, do daws. Then I noted that rotten stump o' branch just convenient to the bird where he took the air, and I says 'Yureeker,' which is, being interpreted, 'Found.' But I didn't touch that bole; no, I trusted to my induction. I was as sure it was there as though I'd seen it, and I wanted to lead up to it step by step so's ye might be witness to the discovery. Weren't I right?
"That's why I asked you all to be brought 'ere. That's why I took you all out and made the thing clear to you before your own eyes; William Collop said he'd find the hem'rald where his induction told him it would be. And there he found it!"
His face was irradiated with no common glory.