“I have. I am going to take a walk—Belvoir’s hint, you remember.”
“I can’t say I do.”
“A walk into the past. By the way, you had a letter this morning. May I ask if it was in reference to the blood-test?”
“It was, indeed. And pig’s blood you found that night for a certainty. The test reaction of the blood I sent with anti-human sera was negative.”
“There’s some comfort in that, but it leaves the problem no less vexed than before.”
“More vexed, if you ask me. If it had been the vital fluid of a man, we’d have some notion of what we’re looking for. As it is, even the nature of the problem is vague.”
“Cannibal,” I said. “Well, I must be going; these roads are new to me. When I return to New Aidenn, I expect a bit of interesting mail myself.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Yes; I’ve sent for my copy of the Book of Sylvan Armitage—not that the missing portion of the manuscript is in it. I’ve thumbed the volume too much to have overlooked anything of that sort. Well, cheerio.”
“Cheerio.” Aire returned to his far from cheery work while I set my footsteps out of town and eastward.