All-Story Detective, October 1949 — page 121: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Vulture in a Gilded Cage CHAPTER THREE Fine-Feathered Murderer five minutes, with his eyes raking over every inch of the room. Finally he quoted, softly, “The Bird of ‘Time has but a little way to fly—and lo, the Bird is on the wing.’ I had to admit the quotation was apt, although this wasn’t exactly the setting in which you usually place Omar Khayyam. I asked, “What do you make of it?” “As you mentioned last night,” he said, “you don’t know much about birds. Or farmers. A raven is a kind of crow. When a farmer shoots a crow, he hangs him up on a fence post, or a dead tree or a stump, for all the other birds to see. It scares ’em away.” ~ “Just which ‘birds do you have in mind ?” “It could be just a general warning to all concerned. Or maybe someone knows, or almost knows, more than is healthy.” “Think that’s why she was killed?” “It could be.” He walked slowly around the room once, examining the walls, the floor, every- thing. Then he turned into the study and I followed him. He propped his feet ir- reverently up on the Eagle’s desk and _ lighted a cigarette. B ARNABY stood there for maybe “‘Some other things happened last night. That Raven left here about twelve-thirty, carrying a small package. I had the boys outside, you know, and Haggerty tailed her. He lost her. Said she disappeared like a blackbird down a coal chute. That was just a figure of speech, because where he actually lost her was Grand Central. One minute she was there and the next she wasn’t. And Haggerty’s a good man. He finally came on back here, and she showed up again about two. “Meanwhile, another bird took off. The -Dove. Franklin, the other boy I had on 121 the job, followed her. She went up to her own house on Sixty-ninth, stayed about twenty minutes and came back here.” “I don’t see that that proves much of anything.” “Except that there was an interval of about a half hour when the house wasn’t watched. Anybody could have come in, or gone out.” “But not to kill the Raven. She wasn’t here then.” “Another odd thing happened last night. After Franklin tailed the Dove up to her house, he found a phone and called me. I went on up. There was still a light, so I rang the bell and her husband, old Frank Hulburt, answered. We had quite a little talk. He says his wife has been ang a little queer lately.” “You didn’t have to be told that, did you?” ' “He seemed cae worried about her especially about her spending so mach time down here in the Eagle’s nest. But he didn’t interfere because he was afraid it might upset her. I got to poking around later and discovered that the money in that family is all hers, which is maybe why the old boy was so solicitous. He also told me something else. He recognized the handwriting on that note.” “Whose was it?” _ “His wife’s.” That was something of.a stunner. Ask me in a few weeks—I’ll beg for #. I couldn’t fit the sense of that note in with what we had seen of the Dove, any more than I could connect the bold handwriting with her remote and misty personality. She didn’t have-to beg anybody for any- thing. I said as much to Barnaby. He shrugged. “Might be a slight schiz- ophrenia, for all I know—one of those Jekyll and Hyde things. She talks like a cooing dove, but some of her ideas are as bold as a hawk’s, and that shows up when she writes.” “But she said she didn't recognize the COMiICcloOoe S ©