“What!”
“Oh, I saw it, sir—no feathers it had—only like the down of other birds’ wings—and eyes like balls of fire!”
“Nonsense, woman. Besides, this Corpse-bird, as you call it, should have come before. The damage is done already.”
“Yes, sir, there’s poor Mr. Cosgrove’s body lying there, sir. But the Bird means another death.”
XI.
Superintendent Salt
October 4. 2.35 P.M.
Yet the two men from New Aidenn had come up the Vale through that ruinous rain and wind. From the corner library window I myself had dimly seen them plodding up the leaf-stained drive against the blast, and had been at the cat-head entrance when Blenkinson admitted them, grotesquely dishevelled by the storm. The very tall one, whose hat was gone and who carried a bulgy black instrument-case, was Doctor Niblett, Coroner as well. Superintendent Salt, a man of more pulp, and built on the underslung plan, wore a necklet of grizzly beard and had short curly hair, like a Roman Emperor’s. I at once christened him Peggotty, “a hairy man with a good-natured face.”
Quite a little lake had sluiced and oozed from their coats and shoes before Pendleton came rushing downstairs from his wife’s room.
“You got here?”
“I expect so,” answered Superintendent Salt in the indecisive way that I have learned is universal with native Radnorites. “I had my neighbour the Coroner come along, Doctor Niblett here.”