“Oh yes. Most recently I received a pair of falcons the owner has requested to be mounted for his hunting room at his estate in the country.”
I explained that Mr. Woolsey at Jenners had suggested that he might be able to help me identify a feather I had found.
“Señor Woolsey? Ah yes. He is a good man. I often assist with a special request from a customer for a suit or other custom-made garment.”
I retrieved the blue feather and laid it on the glass-topped counter.
“What can you tell me about this?”
He wore his spectacles pushed back at his forehead. He looked around for them on the counter, then the counter along the wall behind.
“I cannot understand how one is supposed to find glasses when one needs them to see,” he commented, searching next in a drawer.
I caught his attention and gestured to my own forehead.
“Ah,” he exclaimed. “There they are.” He pushed them into place, then began his inspection of the feather I had found at the Grassmarket.
“A most unusual colour, and magnificent.”
“Do you recognize it?”
“I have seen them before. It is from the hyacinth macaw. Very rare and expensive. That particular macaw is found in Brazil.” He looked at me with unusually large eyes behind the glass of the spectacles.
“Have you travelled there?”
I admitted that I had not.
“Ah, a gift perhaps, although it seems to have experienced some damage as you can see here.”
Munro joined me after his inspection of the wall of heads.
“Have ye used a feather such as this in yer work?”
“As I said, this particular macaw is quite rare, found in the interior of the country. Feathers such as these are rare as well.”
He was hesitant, evasive.
“For a customer perhaps?” I continued.
“I apologize. I cannot remember, I have many customers.”
I persisted. “You might have a record of such a request.”
He shook his head as he handed the feather back to me. His fingers brushed mine.
It was unexpected almost startling, but as he handed me the feather and our fingers touched, an image appeared at the end of the counter.
It was faint at first, then grew stronger. I tried to understand exactly what it was that I was seeing.
The image gradually became more clear. It was the taxidermist engaged in conversation with someone at the same time he stood across from me behind the counter, a wood tray the taxidermist had brought to the counter filled with blue feathers!
The somewhat short but powerful man who stood across from him picked up one of the feathers in the fingers of his left hand.
I didn’t understand the vision—I only knew that the taxidermist was lying. He knew who had purchased the blue feather along with several more. The image slowly faded. I turned back to Señor Petrelli.
“How many blue feathers did he purchase that day?” I inquired. “There were at least a dozen or more that you showed him.”
The taxidermist stared at me.
