‘What?” said Priam in a mumble.
“All his warnings to you have had not one, but two, things in common. Not only has each warning involved an animal ― but each animal was dead.”
Priam’s head jerked.
“His first warning was a dead lamprey. His second warning was a dead fish. His third consisted of dead frogs and toads. The next a dead alligator. The next ― The Birds ― a little symbolism here, because he mutilated and destroyed the book... the only way in which you can physically ‘kill’ a book! Even his last warning ― the ‘cats and dogs’ ― connotes death; there’s nothing quite so ‘dead’ as the stock of a company that has folded up. Really a humorist, this Adam.
“Right up the ladder of evolution ― from the lowest order of vertebrates, the lamprey, to one of the highest, cats and dogs. And every one, in fact or by symbol, was delivered dead.
“But Mr. Priam, Adam isn’t finished.” Ellery leaned forward. “He hasn’t climbed Darwin’s ladder to stop at the next-to-the-last rung. The top rung of that ladder is still to be put in evidence. The highest creature in the class of Mammalia.
“So it’s perfectly certain that there’s an exhibit yet to come, the last exhibit, and by inference from the preceding ones, a dead exhibit. Charles Lyell Adam is going to produce a dead man, Mr. Priam, and there wouldn’t be much point to his Darwinian joke if that dead man weren’t Roger Priam.”
Priam remained absolutely motionless.
“We’ve gone all over this,” said Lieutenant Keats sharply, “and we agree there’s only one thing to do. You’re tagged for murder, Priam, and it’s going to come soon ― tomorrow, maybe tonight, maybe an hour from now. I’ve got to have you alive, Priam, and I want Adam alive, too, if possible, because the law likes us to bring ‘em back that way. You’re going to have to be guarded night and day, starting right now. A man in this room. One on the terrace there. A couple around the grounds―”
Roger Priam filled his chest.