Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life

‘What is Method Number Three?’ I asked.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Number Three’s a real beauty. It was the last one my dad ever invented before he passed away.’

‘His final great work?’

‘Exactly, Gordon. And I can even remember the very day it happened, a Sunday morning it was, and suddenly my dad comes into the kitchen holding a huge white cockerel in his hands and he says, “I think I’ve got it.” There’s a little smile on his face and a shine of glory in his eyes and he comes in very soft and quiet and he puts the bird down right in the middle of the kitchen table and he says, “By God, I think I’ve got a good one this time.” “A good what?” Mum says, looking up from the sink. “Horace, take that filthy bird off my table.” The cockerel has a funny little paper hat over its head, like an ice-cream cone upside down, and my dad is pointing to it proudly. “Stroke him,” he said. “He won’t move an inch.” The cockerel starts scratching away at the paper hat with one of its feet, but the hat seems to be stuck on with glue and it won’t come off. “No bird in the world is going to run away once you cover up his eyes,” my dad says, and he starts poking the cockerel with his finger and pushing it around on the table, but it doesn’t take the slightest bit of notice. “You can have this one,” he says, talking to Mum. “You can kill it and dish it up for dinner as a celebration of what I have just invented.” And then straight away he takes me by the arm and marches me quickly out the door and off we go over the fields and up into the big forest the other side of Haddenham which used to belong to the Duke of Buckingham, and in less than two hours we get five lovely fat pheasants with no more trouble than it takes to go out and buy them in a shop.’

Claud paused for breath. His eyes were huge and moist and dreamy as they gazed back into the wonderful world of his youth.

‘I don’t quite follow this,’ I said. ‘How did he get the paper hats over the pheasants’ heads up in the woods?’

‘You’d never guess it.’

‘I’m sure I wouldn’t.’

‘Then here it is. First of all you dig a little hole in the ground. Then you twist a piece of paper into the shape of a cone and you fit this into the hole, hollow end upward, like a cup. Then you smear the paper cup all around the inside with bird-lime and drop in a few raisins. At the same time you lay a trial of raisins along the ground leading up to it. Now – the old pheasant comes pecking along the trail, and when he gets to the hole he pops his head inside to gobble the raisins and the next thing he knows he’s got a paper hat stuck over his eyes and he can’t see a thing. Isn’t it marvellous what some people think of, Gordon? Don’t you agree?’

‘Your dad was a genius,’ I said.

‘Then take your pick. Choose whichever one of the three methods you fancy and we’ll use it tonight.’

‘You don’t think they’re all just a trifle on the crude side, do you?’

‘Crude!’ he cried, aghast. ‘Oh my God! And who’s been having roasted pheasant in the house nearly every single day for the last six months and not a penny to pay?’

He turned and walked away toward the door of the workshop. I could see that he was deeply pained by my remark.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Don’t go.’

‘You want to come or don’t you?’

‘Yes, but let me ask you something first. I’ve just had a bit of an idea.’

‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘You are talking about a subject you don’t know the first thing about.’

‘Do you remember that bottle of sleeping-pills the doc gave me last month when I had a bad back?’

‘What about them?’

‘Is there any reason why those wouldn’t work on a pheasant?’

Claud closed his eyes and shook his head pityingly from side to side.

‘Wait,’ I said.

‘It’s not worth discussing,’ he said. ‘No pheasant in the world is going to swallow those lousy red capsules. Don’t you know any better than that?’

‘You are forgetting the raisins,’ I said. ‘Now listen to this. We take a raisin. Then we soak it till it swells. Then we make a tiny slit in one side of it with a razor-blade. Then we hollow it out a little. Then we open up one of my red capsules and pour all the powder into the raisin. Then we get a needle and cotton and very carefully we sew up the slit. Now…’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Claud’s mouth slowly beginning to open.

‘Now,’ I said. ‘We have a nice clean-looking raisin with two and a half grains of Seconal inside it, and let me tell you something now. That’s enough dope to knock the average man unconscious, never mind about birds!’

I paused for ten seconds to allow the full impact of this to strike home.

‘What’s more, with this method we could operate on a really grand scale. We could prepare twenty raisins if we felt like it, and all we’d have to do is scatter them around the feeding grounds at sunset and then walk away. Half an hour later we’d come back, and the pills would be beginning to work, and the pheasants would be up in the trees by then, roosting, and they’d be starting to feel groggy, and they’d be wobbling and trying to keep their balance, and soon every pheasant that had eaten one single raisin would keel over unconscious and fall to the ground. My dear boy, they’d be dropping out of the trees like apples, and all we’d have to do is walk around picking them up!’

Claud was staring at me, rapt.