The Case of the Loyal Parrot

0:00 New Pence at Baker Street

0:04 Watson: It was in the wet spring of nineteen seventy-one, and London had spent the whole of May pretending it was still March. On that Monday evening, the seventeenth, Holmes lay along the settee among his newspapers. I sat at the table with Mrs Hudson's bill for the hearthrug his acids had eaten. The country had gone decimal in February. Holmes had not, and so I was turning every new penny back into shillings for his benefit.

0:30 Watson: Holmes, this would be simpler if you admitted the new pence exist. Holmes: I admit they exist. I simply decline to be introduced.

0:39 Watson: Mrs Hudson won't accept a philosophical position in lieu of payment. Holmes: Then render it in honest shillings, and I shall pay like a gentleman. Watson: In shillings it looks worse. Your acids were very thorough.

0:54 Holmes: My acids were scientific. The carpet was merely in the way. Watson: Tell her that yourself. I should like to watch.

1:02 Holmes: A caller in this downpour. Desperate, or lost. Watson: Or both.

1:08 Mrs Hudson: Miss, you can't just go up! Mr Holmes, I'm sorry, she wouldn't wait! Holmes: No harm done, Mrs Hudson.

1:17 Anjali: You're Mr Holmes. I could be on tonight's plane to Delhi. I came here instead.

1:22 Watson: Then you'd better sit down, Miss...? Anjali: Anjali Saxena. I read medicine at Guy's. This morning my father was the most trusted man at the Lodhi National Bank in New Delhi.

1:34 Holmes: And tonight? Anjali: Tonight he needs his name cleared, and I've no one else to ask... Mrs Hudson: I'll fetch tea, Doctor Watson.

1:43 Holmes: Miss Saxena, New Delhi is the far side of the world. Its police never sent for— Anjali: They wouldn't! They think it's finished.

1:52 Holmes: Then, rightly or wrongly, it'll be settled before we could land. Watson: Consider how fast it happened. Holmes: Fast?

2:00 Watson: Her father starts the day the most trusted man in his bank, and by nightfall he needs clearing. What does that, in one working day? Holmes: Nothing slow. And very seldom anything honest.

2:13 Anjali: Then you'll come? Holmes: Does your plane have room for us? Anjali: I asked them to hold seats. On hope.

2:20 Holmes: Then settle with Mrs Hudson, in whatever coin she likes. Watson: New pence, I expect. Holmes: Barbarism. Your hat.

2:35 A Cool Welcome in Delhi

2:39 Watson: By the middle of the next morning Miss Saxena had brought us through the Delhi heat to the Chandra Marg police station. Rai: Mr Sherlock Holmes. I'm Inspector Rai. London cabled that you were coming. I didn't cable back.

2:55 Watson: Charming. Holmes: Yet you let us in. Courtesy, Inspector, or a case that won't close?

3:01 Rai: Won't close? Fifty lakh rupees left the Lodhi Bank yesterday in one steel trunk. Five million. The man who sent it sits in my cells.

3:13 Watson: Good heavens. Mr Saxena swears the Minister for Special Affairs herself telephoned for the— Rai: Her office says no call was made. Not by her, not by anyone in that house.

3:24 Anjali: Then someone pretended to be her! My father is— my father isn't a thief. Holmes: Yet you're letting him go, Inspector. A man you believed had stolen it, you'd keep.

3:37 Rai: Why lock up a man who knows where a trunk is? I follow him. Bring Saxena out!

3:44 Anjali: Papa! You haven't slept. Watson: Nor eaten, by the colour of him. Has he had water, Inspector?

3:52 Rai: Go home, Mr Saxena. Your passport stays in my drawer. Saxena: Keep it, Inspector. Where would a disgraced man run?

4:01 Anjali: Papa, these gentlemen came from London. Tell Mr Holmes— Saxena: Not here, beti. Take me home first.

4:08 Behind the Grille

4:12 Watson: Within the hour we were in the cash hall of the Lodhi Bank, walking its counters with the deputy cashier.

4:25 Colette: Colette, Mr Holmes. Deputy cashier, and acting chief since yesterday. Mind the grille.

4:31 Holmes: You haven't moved to his desk, Miss Colette. You work standing beside it. Colette: It's his desk until the bank says otherwise. I'm acting, Mr Holmes. Only acting.

4:42 Watson: And his telephone? Colette: It still rings for him. I let it ring.

4:48 Lobo: Tea, sir, tea! Lobo, from the canteen. Ginger and plenty of sugar, for the shock, no? Twenty years this branch never lost one paisa.

4:58 Colette: Nobody in this hall is laughing, Lobo. Lobo: The bazaar is laughing, Miss Colette. And yesterday the Inspector was shouting in my canteen like a sergeant-major. Names, everybody's names!

5:11 Holmes: Six cups, Mr Lobo, and only three of us to drink them. You've grown used to feeding policemen. Lobo: Police drink more tea than bankers, sir. Free tea, they drink twice, no?

5:24 Colette: Drink it, Doctor, while it's hot. Nothing else in this hall is pleasant. Holmes: The police are still here at closing, then?

5:31 Colette: Every night now they search us like thieves. Holmes: Do they, indeed.

5:37 Behind Closed Shutters

5:41 Watson: Saxena received us behind closed shutters after lunch, his daughter sent to the chemist for something to help him sleep. Saxena: Forgive the dark, Mr Holmes. I can't bear the street looking in.

5:53 Holmes: Then tell us about the telephone. Saxena: My desk telephone rang yesterday morning. A voice said— it said, Madam will speak. Then Madam herself.

6:04 Watson: You knew the voice? Saxena: Doctor, all India knows that voice from the wireless. Quick, low, no patience for fools. And she wanted fifty lakh rupees, at once, in confidence, for a secret mission. A receipt would follow from her house.

6:21 Holmes: Each time you say "Madam" you drop your voice, though your daughter is out. Something else was on that line. Saxena: You hear too much. A bird. There was— behind her voice a parrot screeched God save the King, like a sahib's club before the war.

6:38 Watson: Good Lord. Taught before Independence, that bird is nearly twenty-five. The greys live sixty. My aunt's outlived two husbands.

6:49 Holmes: Old, then, and close. A screech carries poorly down a line. Saxena: No one knows of it but the Inspector. Not Anjali, not one soul at the bank. Now you.

7:01 Holmes: And your staff in the hall? What did they see while Madam— Saxena: Do not ask me that today. My own people— they watched me bow to a telephone.

7:10 Watson: Enough for one sitting, Holmes. Saxena: The Inspector laughed at the bird. But I heard it.

7:17 The Inspector's File

7:21 Watson: Toward evening Rai shut his office door on the typewriters and laid a file open between us. Rai: So Saxena gave you his bird? Holmes: He did. He says you laughed at it.

7:35 Rai: I did. His own words, signed. "Behind Madam's voice, a parrot, screaming the old British anthem."

7:43 Holmes: And the newspapers? Rai: No newspaper printed that. Nor was the bank told. Since yesterday four men have walked in here confessing.

7:53 Watson: Cranks, I suppose. Rai: A clerk, a holy man, two drunkards. All wanting their photograph in the Statesman. Not one mentioned a bird.

8:04 Holmes: So the bird is your touchstone. You laughed at it, then locked it away. Nobody hides what he thinks is—

8:10 Rai: A policeman hides everything, Mr Holmes. A man with fifty lakh rupees to explain may also tell a colourful story. Holmes: Leaving Watson and myself aside, who knows of that bird?

8:22 Rai: Saxena, my men, and whoever made that call. Nobody else.

8:28 Twelve Years at the Counter

8:33 Watson: Next morning we breakfasted in the staff canteen, among the smells of ginger and frying oil. Lobo: More tea, Mr Holmes? Miss Colette, sit, sit! Acting chiefs also need tea, no?

8:46 Colette: Five minutes, Lobo. The hall won't count itself. Lobo: Soon they give you that chair for keeps, no? Your name on the door, finally!

8:55 Colette: Don't. Lobo: Arre, I'm only joking! Everybody knows it was—

9:00 Colette: Everybody knows. Yes. Twelve years I kept that cash, Mr Holmes, before he ever came.

9:07 Holmes: And when Mr Saxena was put over you— Colette: I trained him! Which keys, which ledgers, which clerks pinch the stamps. And they gave him the chair. That chair should have been mine.

9:18 Lobo: I didn't mean— Colette: You never mean, Lobo. Nobody here ever means anything...

9:24 Lobo: My big mouth. Now she won't speak to me for a week, no? Holmes: "Before he ever came." Twelve years of her own, and she counts them from his arrival.

9:36 Lobo: Three years she is counting, sir. Wait, I'll take her a sweet. Watson: Holmes, could she— could she have been the voice on that telephone?

9:45 A Doctor's Diagnosis

9:49 Watson: Miss Saxena found us that evening on the Imperial Hotel's verandah, beneath fans that merely stirred the heat. Anjali: Papa's asleep at last. You've been to the bank twice, Mr Holmes. You've met Colette.

10:03 Holmes: Twice. You use her first name, Miss Saxena. Anjali: I called her Auntie Colette till I was twelve. She loathed Papa's promotion. The whole branch knew.

10:14 Holmes: Loathed is your word. She resents it, which isn't quite the same— Anjali: Then add this. Papa heard Madam's voice. Who at that branch could sound like a woman, except a woman?

10:26 Watson: She has a point, Holmes. A man's falsetto rarely fools anyone for long. Holmes: Rarely.

10:33 Anjali: And Inspector Rai has barely looked at her. He's decided on Papa, and he's waiting for him to dig up a trunk. Holmes: You've seen Rai since lunch. "Dig up" is a policeman's phrase. And you've come with your culprit already chosen.

10:48 Anjali: I have. Yes. A doctor names the likeliest cause, then tests for it.

10:54 Holmes: And the test you prescribe, Doctor? Anjali: A woman's voice, Mr Holmes. Find where Colette was that noon.

11:02 A Password on the Church Steps

11:06 Watson: The Mission Church stood a short walk up Chandra Marg, and by nine next morning Rai had Saxena, Holmes and me on its porch. Rai: Here, Mr Saxena? You parked at the railing and carried the trunk up these steps?

11:23 Saxena: Alone, Inspector. It nearly broke my back. Watson: I don't doubt it. Fifty lakh rupees in notes would. Who was waiting for you?

11:32 Saxena: A figure in a grey shawl. Over the head and— and across the mouth. Dark glasses. Man or woman, Doctor, I could not swear.

11:41 Holmes: And it spoke? Saxena: It only whispered. The password Madam gave me on the telephone.

11:48 Rai: Say it again. Word for word, the way you— Saxena: It whispered, "Has the camel eaten the umbrella?" And I answered, "No, only the black hat."

11:57 Watson: Extraordinary. Rai: A camel. An umbrella. A black hat. Only a liar would invent that, Mr Holmes.

12:07 Holmes: Or a careful thief. A fortune changing hands wants a password nobody could guess. Saxena: Then a taxi at the kerb. The courier and the driver lifted the trunk in, and they were gone.

12:20 Rai: And no taxi driver in Delhi has come forward. Holmes: Mark the whisper, Inspector. This porch stands empty at that hour, so it wasn't hiding from eavesdroppers. A whisper hides pitch and accent. Your courier feared being known.

12:36 Watson: Known to Mr Saxena, you mean. A voice he'd recognise. Holmes: Exactly.

12:43 Rai: Or a courier Mr Saxena invented, along with the camel and the hat. Saxena: I have not the wit to invent such words, Inspector.

12:52 The Doorman's Register

12:57 Watson: At eleven Rai led us round to the side door the staff use, where an old durwan kept his register on a stool, and sent for Colette. Rai: Miss Saxena has been at me about you, Miss Colette. So I read the durwan's book.

13:13 Colette: Read away, Inspector. I sign nothing in it. Rai: You don't. He does. The trunk went out the front at five to twelve. Then you, out this door, five past twelve. Back at five past one. Gone a full hour.

13:31 Colette: He's written— that is what he's written? Holmes: He doesn't write "Miss Colette", Watson. He writes "Colette Madam". A man who's bowed her in for twelve years isn't mistaking a stranger.

13:43 Watson: Miss Colette, you were at your counter all that— Colette: With the chief gone and the hall in uproar? Where else would I be?

13:50 Rai: That is my question. Where? Colette: Mr Holmes, you've walked my hall. You know what it was like that day.

14:00 Holmes: I know what it's like now. That day I was in London. Colette: The durwan is mistaken. I never left my— I never left my counter.

14:09 Who Saw Her Leave?

14:14 Watson: Lobo had his canteen to himself a little before noon, and was wiping cups when Rai dragged out a chair. Rai: Lobo. The day of the theft, five past twelve, Miss Colette went out the side door. Who saw her?

14:28 Lobo: Miss Colette, outside? On that day of all days? Not me, Inspector.

14:34 Holmes: Your window gives on that lane, Mr Lobo. From this counter you'd see the door. Lobo: Any other day, sir, yes. That day the canteen was— it was shut. Fever. Shivering since dawn, no?

14:47 Watson: Malaria? You've a touch of the colour still. Lobo: An old friend, Doctor. Comes and goes. I lay under a blanket, alone in the house near Delhi Gate, till the sweat broke.

15:00 Rai: He came in at three, grey as dishwater. I took his name with all the others. Lobo: And I made your men forty cups, sick or not. Nobody thanked me, no?

15:11 Holmes: So on the one morning your window was dark, she slipped out beneath it. Either she knew, or she was lucky. Lobo: Miss Colette is never lucky, sir. Ask her.

15:22 Rai: Somebody saw that woman leave. I'll find them.

15:26 Balloon-Sellers at Dusk

15:30 Watson: Dusk drew half of Delhi onto the lawns below India Gate, and Holmes and I walked among the balloon-sellers until the arch went dark. Put them side by side, Holmes. She told us outright she wanted his post. And the durwan's book loses her for an hour, just as the money goes.

15:48 Holmes: Motive and opportunity. You've built a sound little house. Watson: With the woman's voice Miss Saxena insists on for a roof. I'd convict on it.

15:58 Holmes: Then mind the weight. Saxena could barely carry that trunk. Whoever took it needed wheels, and needed them close.

16:06 Watson: The taxi. Holmes: An hour gives her the church, a short ride, and back again. Not far, Watson. Nowhere far.

16:15 Watson: So you agree with— Holmes: That it fits. No more than that.

16:19 Watson: It's where proof usually starts. Holmes: Then where was she, Watson, between noon and one?

16:26 A Scene at the Counter

16:30 Watson: The following afternoon, with a queue at every grille, Holmes walked straight across the busy hall to Colette's counter. Holmes: Miss Colette. The Inspector has your hour. I should like the rest of it.

16:43 Watson: Holmes, really— Colette: Here, Mr Holmes? With half of Chandra Marg listening?

16:48 Holmes: You don't ask which hour I mean. You know which. Colette: Everybody in this branch knows what the police write down.

16:55 Holmes: Then they know you told the canteen, "That chair should have been mine." And there it stands, empty. Colette: Many things should have been mine. I didn't steal them.

17:06 Holmes: The courier on that porch only whispered. A whisper was needed only by someone Mr Saxena would know. And you've stood beside him three years, you've—

17:13 Colette: So has every clerk in this hall! Holmes: Not every clerk went out the side door at five past twelve. Colette: I... that is...

17:23 Lobo: Arre, not in front of the customers! Poor sahib. All Delhi laughing, him bowing to the telephone and Madam with a parrot on her shoulder, no?

17:34 Colette: Be quiet, Lobo! For once in your life— Holmes: Where were you?

17:38 Colette: At my counter! Twelve years at this counter. I trained the man you came to save, and you stand there and call me a thief in front of my own clerks—

17:47 Watson: Holmes, this is hardly the place. Colette: No, Doctor. Let him finish. Let them all hear it.

17:54 Colette: Then fetch your inspector.

17:57 Across the Inspector's Desk

18:01 Watson: Rai had them both across his desk before five, Colette by the window and Saxena by the door, with Holmes and me between.

18:15 Rai: Mr Holmes says the courier whispered to hide a voice you knew. Mr Saxena, could that shawl have been Miss Colette? Saxena: Inspector, I couldn't say it was. I couldn't say it was not...

18:31 Colette: Say it, Mr Saxena. Everyone else has. Holmes: Go back further. While Madam's voice was in your ear, what was Miss Colette doing?

18:40 Saxena: Must I tell that too? Watson: You've carried something since we first sat in your dark room, Mr Saxena. Put it down.

18:49 Saxena: She was at her counter, ten feet from my desk. She saw my face. And she begged me—

18:54 Rai: Begged you what? Saxena: To put down the receiver and ring the Minister's House myself. While Madam was still speaking.

19:04 Rai: And you didn't. Saxena: I waved her away. One does not hang up on Madam. That's why I never told it. My deputy warned me, and still I sent the money...

19:15 Colette: I never told it either, Inspector. I wouldn't shame him with it. Rai: A man warned, who still sends fifty lakh rupees. Is that a fool, Mr Saxena, or a man who—

19:28 Holmes: Whatever he is, she was at her counter while the voice spoke. I was wrong. Watson: Well, I'm blessed.

19:36 After Closing Time

19:40 Watson: After closing, the grilles came down on an empty hall, and Rai sat Colette at her own counter while Holmes and I stood by. Rai: Miss Colette, I grant you this. You begged him to ring the Minister's House while that voice still talked. No plotter does that.

19:59 Colette: Is that all, Inspector? Rai: No. The durwan's book still has you gone a full hour, straight after the trunk. Where?

20:08 Colette: At my counter. I've said so. Holmes: It isn't the police you're hiding that hour from, Miss Colette. It's your clerks. The branch.

20:17 Colette: And what do you know of this branch? Holmes: That it passed you over. A woman who's been passed over doesn't rob a bank. She leaves it.

20:26 Colette: Leaves it... Grindlays, in Connaught Place. They wanted a chief cashier. I went that noon, that day of all days—

20:33 Rai: An interview. Colette: Twelve years, Inspector! And I crept out of a side door like a schoolgirl, to beg strangers for what this bank wouldn't give me—

20:43 Watson: Here. It's a clean handkerchief. Colette: I came back to find him ruined and police in the hall. How could I say I'd— that I'd been out after his chair somewhere else?

20:54 Rai: Who saw you there? Colette: Their chief accountant. Ask him!

21:00 Rai: I'll use the chief's telephone. It's told enough lies.

21:13 Rai: Grindlays? Inspector Rai, Chandra Marg. Your chief accountant... Yes. A Miss Colette, the noon of the Lodhi Bank business. From when? I see.

21:27 Rai: From a quarter past twelve to a quarter to one, across his desk. Grindlays vouches for your hour, Miss Colette.

21:35 Sleepless on the Verandah

21:40 Watson: Long after midnight I gave up on sleep and found Holmes on the hotel verandah, in his shirtsleeves beneath a creaking fan. Holmes: Two remarks, Watson. They don't fit together.

21:52 Watson: Whose? Holmes: Rai's first, behind a shut door: the papers never had the bird, and nor did the bank. Then Lobo's, in the open hall, giving Madam a parrot.

22:04 Watson: Gossip. A constable over a glass of tea. That's how every bazaar—

22:08 Holmes: Gossip says "they say". Lobo didn't say it. He perched the bird on her as if he'd seen it.

22:15 Watson: Nor is it a bazaar bird. A parrot learns the anthem where it's sung at it daily. An English house. A club.

22:22 Holmes: I conclude nothing. Not at this hour. Watson: You've never concluded nothing in your life.

22:29 Holmes: Then where, Watson, did a canteen man meet that parrot?

22:34 A Dim Stone Hall

22:38 Watson: A lane inside Delhi Gate brought Rai, a silent Saxena, Holmes and me to the canteen man's lodging, and his landlady let us into a dim stone hall. Rai: Lobo went to his canteen at seven, as always. My man is sitting outside it.

22:55 Holmes: One telephone, on the wall by the stair. Is it the only one in the house? Rai: The only one. An English major kept this house until forty-seven, the landlady says. He left her the telephone, and that covered cage.

23:09 Watson: My aunt covered hers to shut it up. Holmes: And it hangs a foot from the mouthpiece. Whoever speaks into that telephone speaks into its cage.

23:19 Rai: Lobo told us he was alone in the house that morning. My constable has checked: the landlady was at the temple, the other lodger at his office. Holmes: Mr Saxena, you'll know it or you won't. Watson, the cloth.

23:40 Saxena: God save the King, and that same crack at the end! Inspector, that is— that is the bird. That's what screamed behind Madam's voice.

23:50 Rai: You'd swear to it? Saxena: On my daughter's head. I've heard it in my sleep every night since.

23:57 Rai: Then the voice was Lobo's.

24:00 Back at the Bank

24:04 Watson: We filed into the canteen as Lobo set out the noon cups, and Rai shut the door behind Saxena. Lobo: Sahib! Back in the bank! Sit, I'll make you ginger, strong, no?

24:17 Saxena: No tea. Holmes: Yesterday in the cash hall you gave Madam a parrot on her shoulder. Who told you there was a parrot?

24:24 Lobo: Everybody, sir! Canteen gossip. Clerks talk, peons talk, the whole bazaar—

24:30 Holmes: Then the bazaar is slow. Four men have confessed to this theft. Not one of them had heard of a bird.

24:36 Lobo: Policemen, then. Policemen! Forty cups I made them. Police drink, police talk, no?

24:43 Rai: No newspaper printed that, and the bank was never told. My men kept it. One sub-inspector took it down, and he swears he has never drunk your tea.

24:55 Lobo: Then sahib said it himself! A man talks to his daughter, his— Saxena: I told the Inspector, and these two gentlemen behind my shutters. Not my daughter. Not one soul in this bank.

25:06 Watson: And none of us said "bird" in your hearing, Lobo. Not here with the Inspector, and not in the hall. I'd have noticed.

25:13 Lobo: Then I dreamed it, no? That old fever of mine— Holmes: You heard it every morning, Mr Lobo, a foot from your hall telephone. Only the man who made that call could know a bird was on the line.

25:26 Lobo: I... I only... Rai: I'm arresting you for cheating the Lodhi National Bank.

25:32 An Evening Upstairs

25:36 Watson: That evening Rai's constables brought Lobo up to the Inspector's office, where the steel trunk stood open beside the desk. Rai: Fifty lakh rupees, Lobo, from under your bed, beneath the bricks and a foot of earth. Not a bundle short.

25:53 Lobo: Counted by policemen, Inspector? Count again, no? Holmes: You stand to attention when you're cornered. That's no canteen habit.

26:01 Lobo: Captain Lobo, sir, once. Signals, then intelligence, then out over a mess debt. The moneylenders followed me to Delhi.

26:10 Rai: So you robbed the government. Lobo: I made a fool of it, which is better. Shall I show you how?

26:18 Holmes: Please. Lobo: Mr Saxena, this is a matter of national importance. You'll speak of it to no one.

26:25 Watson: Good God. That's the voice from the wireless, to the life. Holmes: A gift for voices. Then why the camel, Captain? A man with that gift needn't stoop to nonsense.

26:37 Lobo: Ah, the camel! I'm proud of the camel. Most passwords are for the handover. Mine was for afterwards.

26:45 Rai: Afterwards? Lobo: For your office, Inspector. A ruined man swears Madam told him a camel ate an umbrella. Each time he says it, he sounds a bigger liar, no?

26:58 Watson: Monstrous. Holmes: So the nonsense was the second half of the theft. First the money. Then any chance of Saxena being believed.

27:08 Rai: "Only a liar would invent that," I told Mr Holmes on that porch. And one did. Take him down.

27:16 A Cable from Delhi

27:20 Watson: Baker Street had us back by the following week, its slates running with rain and Mrs Hudson's bill still lying on the table. Mrs Hudson: A cable from Delhi, Mr Holmes. Holmes: Read it to me, Mrs Hudson. The bill will keep.

27:33 Mrs Hudson: "Saxena back in his chair stop. Passport out of my drawer stop. Colette Madam to Grindlays Monday stop. Regards to the Doctor stop. Rai."

27:45 Watson: Good for her. Holmes: Regards to you, Watson, and none to me. I suspect Miss Colette had a hand in that. I called her a thief before her own clerks.

27:56 Watson: But how does a canteen man... how does he become the Minister? Holmes: He showed us on our very first morning, in the hall where the cash is kept: Rai's sergeant-major bark, over a tray of tea. We heard a clown. In Rai's office he gave us Madam.

28:12 Watson: Then why breathe a word about the bird? A man that careful. Holmes: Vanity. He'd fooled all India, and nobody knew it was him. The bird was the one joke he could tell about it.

28:25 Watson: And it cost Saxena his face before his own staff, and Colette the branch she'd given twelve years, and— Mrs Hudson: The bill, Mr Holmes. In new pence.

28:35 Holmes: Barbarism. Watson, pay the woman. Watson: Gladly. That parrot sang the anthem for nearly twenty-five years, you know, and never once missed its cue.

28:47 Holmes: A gift for voices, Watson, undone by a bird's.