“What about that Talbot fellow?”
“So far as I can tell, Larry Talbot doesn’t have a nonvegetable companion. He can take care of himself, I think.”
“All right.”
“. . . And we should all agree to spread the word on who they are and where they live. It won’t matter to someone like that what your persuasion is.”
“I agree with you on this.”
Later, I checked around outside and there were no crossbow-persons in the vicinity. So I opened the window again and let Needle out, the vicar’s quarrels stuck in the siding over our heads.
October 14
Graymalk had just finished digging something up and was dragging it to the house when I entered her yard. I brought her up to date on last night’s events, and while she cautioned me never to trust a bat she acknowledged the seriousness of the threat presented by the vicar and his crew. Someone had apparently taken a shot at them from the top of a hill as she and Jill passed overhead last night, causing them to veer and experience an exciting moment or two near a chimney.
When she had completed her task, Graymalk said, “There were a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Go ahead.”
“First things first, then. I’d better show you this one.”
I followed her out of the yard.
“A London police officer visited Constable Terence yesterday,” she said. “Quicklime and I saw him go by on a chestnut mare.”
“Yes?”
“Later, Cheeter saw the mare browsing in a field and mentioned it as something odd. We sought about the area but the rider was nowhere near. After a time, we went away.”
“You should have gotten me. I could have backtracked.”
“I came by. But you weren’t around.”
“I did have some chores. . . . Anyway, what happened?”
“I was in another field later, the place we’re going to now, near you. There was a pair of crows rising and falling there, and I was thinking of lunch. So were they, as it turned out. They were eating the officer’s eyes, where he lay in a clump of weeds. Just up ahead.”
We approached. The birds were gone. So were the eyes. The man was in uniform. His throat had been cut.
I sat down and stared.
“I don’t like this at all,” I finally said.
“Didn’t think you would.”
“It’s too near. We live just over that way.”
“And we live over there.”
“Have you told anyone else yet?”
“No. So it’s not one of yours, unless you’re a very good actor.”
I shook my head.
“It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Jack _is_ supposed to have magical control over a certain ritual blade.”
“And Owen has a sickle. So what? And Rastov has an amazing icon drawn by a mad Arab who’d given up on Islam. But he could have used a kitchen knife. And Jill has her broom. She could still find something to cut a throat with.”
“You know about the icon!”
“Sure. It’s my job, keeping track of the tools. I’m a watcher, remember? And the Count probably has the ring, and the Good Doctor the bowl. I think it’s just a regular killing. But now we’re stuck with a body in the neighborhood, and not just _any_ body. It’s a policeman. There’ll be an investigation, and, face it, we’re all suspicious characters with things to hide. We only planned to be here for a few weeks. We do as much as we can of the active stuff outside the area, for now. We try to stay relatively inconspicuous here. But we’re all transients with strange histories. This is going to spoil a lot of planning.”
“If the body is found.”
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t you dig a hole, push it in, and cover it up? The way you do with bones, only bigger?”
“They’d spot a new grave, once they start looking. No. We have to get it out of here.”
“You’re big enough to drag it. Could you get it to that ruined church, push it down the opening?”
“Still too near. And it might scare the Count into moving, for fear people will be poking around there.”