'I suppose you keep a gun or something hidden away up there?'
'A gun!' he cried, disgusted. 'Nobody ever shoots pheasants, didn't you know that? You've only got to fire a cap-pistol in Hazel's woods and the keepers'll be on you.'
'Then how do you do it?'
'Ah,' he said, and the eyelids drooped over the eyes, veiled and secretive.
There was a long pause. Then he said, 'Do you think you could keep your mouth shut if I was to tell you a thing or two?'
'Definitely.'
'I've never told this to anyone else in my whole life, Gordon.'
'I am greatly honoured,' I said. 'You can trust me completely.'
He turned his head, fixing me with pale eyes. The eyes were large and wet and ox-like, and they were so near to me that I could see my own face reflected upside down in the centre of each.
'I am now about to let you in on the three best ways in the world of poaching a pheasant,' he said. 'And seeing that you're the guest on this little trip, I am going to give you the choice of which one you'd like us to use tonight. How's that?'
'There's a catch in this.'
'There's no catch, Gordon. I swear it.'
'All right, go on.'
'Now, here's the thing,' he said. 'Here's the first big secret.' He p
aused and took a long suck at his cigarette. 'Pheasants,' he whispered softly, 'is crazy about raisins.'
'Raisins?'
'Just ordinary raisins. It's like a mania with them. My dad discovered that more than forty years ago just like he discovered all three of these methods I'm about to describe to you now.'
'I thought you said your dad was a drunk.'
'Maybe he was. But he was also a great poacher, Gordon. Possibly the greatest there's ever been in the history of England. My dad studied poaching like a scientist.'
'Is that so?'
'I mean it. I really mean it.'
'I believe you.'
'Do you know,' he said, 'my dad used to keep a whole flock of prime cockerels in the back yard purely for experimental purposes.'
'Cockerels?'
'That's right. And whenever he thought up some new stunt for catching a pheasant, he'd try it out on a cockerel first to see how it worked. That's how he discovered about raisins. It's also how he invented the horsehair method.'
Claud paused and glanced over his shoulder as though to make sure that there was nobody listening. 'Here's how it's done,' he said. 'First you take a few raisins and you soak them overnight in water to make them nice and plump and juicy. Then you get a bit of good stiff horsehair and you cut it up into half-inch lengths. Then you push one of these lengths of horsehair through the middle of each raisin so that there's about an eighth of an inch of it sticking out on either side. You follow?'
'Yes.'
'Now - the old pheasant comes along and eats one of these raisins. Right? And you're watching him from behind a tree. So what then?'
'I imagine it sticks in his throat.'
'That's obvious, Gordon. But here's the amazing thing. Here's what my dad discovered. The moment this happens, the bird never moves his feet again! He becomes absolutely rooted to the spot, and there he stands pumping his silly neck up and down just like it was a piston, and all you've got to do is walk calmly out from the place where you're hiding and pick him up in your hands.'