With a gracious nod, Beth turned and marched away. Traversing the lobby, ignoring Devon’s footsteps behind her, she flung open the museum’s exit door. But as she went through to the wide doorstep beyond, a sudden burst of light flashed in her eyes, causing her to stumble back with startlement.
“Madam, look this way?” someone called in a French accent. “And perhaps a smile?”
Another burst of light had Beth raising her arm as a shield. At once, Devon moved in front of her with an unexpected protectiveness that charmed her more than she wanted to admit.
“Sir!” came the voice again, loud, enthusiastic. “The name’s Mirou, reporter with Le Petit Journal. How does it feel to have saved all these people from a deadly bird?”
Lowering her arm, Beth peered confusedly around Devon’s shoulder at the scene before her. Two gentlemen in rather cheap suits, one holding a box camera, the other a notepad and pen, were standing in front of the museum, smiling rapaciously at her and Devon. Beyond them huddled a trio of museum employees, and beyond them, cluttering the street, a small but excited crowd of onlookers.
“How did you know about the bird?” Devon asked suspiciously.
The two men glanced at each other. “We happened to be here purely by coincidence,” said one, “investigating, uh…the plight of the urban sparrow!” He pointed to a poster on the wall beside the museum door, which in fact advertised an exhibition of the urbane sparrow, a bird of an entirely different (and snazzier) feather altogether. “Can you share your feelings about being a hero? And who is this pretty girl with you? Did you save her from certain death as well?”
Devon and Beth stared at him in mute bemusement.
“Show us the bird!” urged the man with the camera. “I’ll photograph it for the newspaper.”
“We don’t have it,” Devon told him. “Didn’t you notice the women who came out not five minutes ago?”
“Women?” The reporters looked at each other again, confused.
Devon frowned. “Two of them, carrying a bird trussed up inside a hat veil?”
“No, doesn’t sound familiar.” The reporters shook their heads slowly. Devon seemed astonished by this, but Beth was entirely unsurprised that two elderly ladies had gone unseen. And she certainly had no interest in talking to newspapermen. Doing so went against all her scientific and academic instincts, since there was no surer way of getting oneself misquoted in a public forum.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, “I have a train to catch.”
“Allow me to escort you,” Devon offered, holding out his arm.
“No, thank you,” Beth replied stiffly. “While it’s been a pleasure escaping death with you, and I wish you all the best despite your general villainy, I should like to be alone now.”
“Madam, I will not leave you exposed to danger.”
“The lapwing has been caught,” she reminded him.
“I’m talking about the newspaper reporters.”
Beth glanced at the men in question. One was eyeing her up and down then writing his observations in the notepad; the second was preparing to take another photograph.
“Very well, if you insist,” she said, shifting a little farther behind him, so as to be more hidden from view. “I will accommodate your vanity by walking with you to the next street corner.”
“Most kind,” he murmured, smiling facetiously. They departed the museum’s doorstep, both taut with silence.
They jostled their way through the crowd, the reporters shouting questions as they went.
They strode along the street with every pretense of not knowing each other.
And arriving at the next corner, they parted ways without a word, set on never meeting again.
(Then traveled the same route back to Hôtel Chauvesouris, took the same elevator to the seventh floor, and walked down the same corridor to where their rooms were located side by side—but as both vehemently refused to notice this, the narrative is powerless to offer any comment.)
Chapter Four
A wise woman allows nothing to ruffle her feathers; she is the ruffler of feathers.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass, H.A. Quirm
Across the street from the Musée des Oiseaux Magiques, in a quaint little coffeehouse, two gentlemen with identical black suits, bowler hats, and brushlike mustaches sipped black coffee as they watched the crowd disperse.
“That couldn’t have gone better, Mr. Flogg!” declared one. “ ‘A Triumphal Success!’ ”
“It was all we hoped for,” said the other. “Did you see that man, Mr. Fettick?”
Mr. Fettick nodded, his eyes shining with the memory. “Tall, dark, and handsome indeed. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect hero to walk into our little trap. Cheers!”
“Cheers!”
They raised their coffee cups in mutual congratulations.
Just then came the sound of a throat being cleared with the discomfort of someone who is about to eat crow. At the table behind them, a man sitting hunched in a trench coat, hat brim pulled low, glanced around the otherwise empty coffeehouse. “The blackbird has landed,” he whispered intensely.
“Did you hear someone speak, Mr. Fettick?” asked Mr. Flogg.
“I’m not sure, Mr. Flogg,” replied Mr. Fettick.
“Hmph.” The man rose from his chair and scuttled to sit at their table. Glancing around nervously once more, he pulled the hat brim even lower.
