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Dear Diary - I was rudely awoken this morning by the
parrot.
Or rather, by the thud of its stiff, lifeless body landing
on the pillow next to my head.
There then followed a few seconds of mortal terror on my
part which I'd rather not go into here. Suffice to say that
I thought some past deeds best left unspoken of had finally
caught up with me.
A dead beast is most certainly not the happiest creature to
wake up next to, I must say.
Darbyshire was standing there, arms crossed, with a stern
demeanor the likes of which I'd not seen before. He
spoke.
"What is a parrot, a dead parrot doing in my basement, how
did it get there and why on earth did it have its beak tied
shut with string?"
I'd never seen old Darby in a mood like this. "Well, I was
looking after it for someone and I didn't want it bothering
you sir, so I put it down there out of your way."
"And the beak? The beak, man?!"
"Well, it swore a lot. I had to do something." Darbyshire
had caught me off guard at that early hour and I found
myself inadvertently telling the truth.
"So the wretched bird starved to death, or something equally
horrid."
"It was a horrid bird sir. You should've heard it. You'd
have wanted to kill it anyway."
"So whose was it?"
"I'd rather not say."
His manner changed and I felt something worse was coming.
"This has something to do with the feathers and blood and
whatnot in the shed, doesn't it?"
I hesitated just that little bit too long.
"You've been staging cockfights in my shed while I was away,
haven't you?"
I would never have credited Darbyshire with such
astuteness.
He walked imperiously over to the window and stood there
looking out onto the back garden. Finally he said, "Larkin,
I don't employ you to reduce the amount of fun and gaiety in
my frivolous lifestyle. Why on earth didn't you tell me you
like cockfighting? I used to own the best fighting cocks in
Rugby. When's the next engagement?"
"Saturday night. When you're away in town."
He started rubbing his hands with glee. "I'm going to
telegraph Carruthers. He should know about this. By jove, I
always knew it was worth getting a midget!"
With that he marched out of my bedroom.
Well this seems to make life a bit easier. What to do about
Jarvis' parrot though?
Maybe I can nail its feet to the perch and sell it.
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