“Thank you, Mrs. Teller. I’ll look into this matter. May I drive you home?”
“No, thank you. I’ll just walk up to Trafalgar and find a cab.”
But he accompanied her that far anyway and hailed the cab for her. As he was about to shut the door, she put her hand out to stop him and said, “You won’t tell Peter where you heard this? He’ll be very angry with me.”
“Not,” he said, “unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Thank you.” She spoke to the driver, and the cab pulled away. The last sight he had of her was a handkerchief in her hand, pressed against her eyes when she thought he could no longer see her.
Rutledge had asked the Yard for information on any other Peter Teller, and Gibson had answers for him, though from the sergeant’s terse manner, Rutledge knew that Jake had been troublesome.
Gibson said, “As to that infernal bird, sir. We’ve a list of things he’s likely to eat. I’ve put that on your desk. Along with a box of samples to see you through until you can decide what to do with the creature.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. Is there anything else?”
“We’ve come up empty-handed in our search for one Peter Teller.”
“You haven’t found one? In all of England?”
“Oh, we’ve found them right enough. One lives in Gloucester, and he’s just on the point of celebrating his seventy-sixth birthday. The other is one of a pair of twins, Peter and Helen Mowbray Teller, who are seven. There was another Peter Teller in Ely, who died in 1910 of pneumonia. The constable there believes he was about thirteen at the time. The man outside New Castle on Tyne, lost both his legs in a mining accident in 1908. He was a supervisor, went down with his men to look at a troublesome face, and there was an explosion. The last one was the son of Peter and Susannah Teller, died age two of bleeding internally. The list is also on your desk.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll relieve you of the infernal bird. Meanwhile, if you will, I need to know more about one Lieutenant Thomas Burrows who didn’t survive the war.” Rutledge gave the particulars of his regiment and added, “Uncle is an MP. Or was. I believe his mother still lives somewhere outside Worcester.”
“I’ll see to it, sir. And if I may make a suggestion, I’d take the bird out covered before the Chief Super learns he was here. We were able to blame one squawk on a baby whose mother had come in to complain of her neighbors.”
Rutledge laughed, and went to recover Jake.
Not knowing what else to do at this time of day—it was well past his dinnertime and possibly Jake’s as well—Rutledge took the bird home with him.
It was silent as the tomb on the journey in the motorcar, but Jake took an instant dislike to a jackdaw outside the flat window where Rutledge set him at first, and the loud denunciation of Rutledge’s choice of accommodation was nearly deafening.
Moving Jake’s cage to another window, he took note of that beak and the condition of the papers inside the cage, and wondered how to manage cleaning them without losing a finger or two in the process.
As a last resort, Rutledge put a little food on the table across from the cage and left the door open while he went to change his clothes and find something cool to drink. When he came back, Jake didn’t appear to have budged. But the food Rutledge had left out for him was gone.
He was tired and said to Jake, “We’ll deal with you tomorrow, my lad.” Shutting the cage door, he sat down across from the bird and considered the day’s events. But he found himself on the edge of sleep instead.
Hamish said, “It wasna’ a verra’ profitable day.”
“But a beginning,” Rutledge answered him drowsily. “The question now is how to put the pieces together. And what we’ll have, when we’ve done it.”
And then he had a horrible thought.
What if Jake could hear Hamish, and began to speak in his voice?
That brought him wide awake. A solution eluded him, but he got up and flung a cloth over the birdcage and listened silently as Jake began his nightly ritual of saying good night to Peter.
The parrot had finished its seeds and taken a bath in the water Rutledge had left in the cage.
In the gray light of a misty morning Rutledge showed the fatigue of a long drive and a short night’s sleep. He looked down at the stained newspapers in the bottom of the cage. He’d just watched Jake crack a nut with ease, and he had no intention of testing that beak against bone. But something had to be done.
He was collecting fresh newspaper when there was a knock at the door of his flat, and Frances came in, calling, “Ian? Are you here? I saw your motorcar. Shouldn’t you be at the Yard?”
“I’m in here,” he told her, and she walked through to his bedroom, where the bird was ensconced on a table by the double windows.
“What possessed you to buy a parrot?” she asked, stopping in astonishment. “But what a pretty creature. Does it have a name? Surely you don’t have the time to care for it properly.”
Rutledge straightened and gazed fondly at his sister.