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long time slithering back.   Not sure what they'd been arguing about.
         Also learned of several cases of sudden severe anemia among the neighbors.   I'm glad the Count doesn't do dogs.
         I took Jack his slippers this evening and lay at his feet before a roaring fire while he smoked his pipe, sipped sherry, and read the newspaper.   He read aloud everything involving killings, arsons, mutilations, grave robberies, church desecrations, and unusual thefts.   It is very pleasant just being domestic sometimes.
     
     October 13
         The great detective was back today.   I glimpsed him only briefly from a hedgerow where I was burying something.   He did not see me.
         Later, Graymalk told me that he had visited Owen's place.   Owen and Cheeter were out, and he had looked about some, discovering the wicker baskets.   His assistant injured his wrist, she said, having been sent up the ladder into the oak to test the strength of some branches, whence he had fallen.   Fortunately, he landed on a heap of mistletoe, or it might have been worse.
         That evening, I heard a scraping at an upstairs window while I was making my rounds.   I went to it and peered out.   At first I saw nothing, then I realized that a small form was darting back and forth.
         "Snuff!   Let me in!   Help!" it cried.
         It was Needle.
         "I know better than to invite you guys inside," I said.
         "That's the boss!   I'm just a bat!   I don't even like tomato juice!   Please!"
         "What's wrong?"
         I heard a loud _thunk_ from the other side of the wall.
         "It's the vicar!" he cried.   "He's wigged out!   Let me in!"
         I undid the latch with my paw and pushed.   It opened a few inches, and he was inside.   He fell to the floor, panting.   There followed another _thunk_ from without.
         "I won't forget this, Snuff," he said.   "Give me a minute. . . ."
         I gave him two, then he stirred.
         "Got any bugs about?" he asked.   "I've got this fast metabolism, and I've been getting a lot of exercise."
         "It'd take a lot of effort catching them," I said.   "They're pretty fast.   How about some fruit?"
         "Fruit is good, too. . . ."
         "There's a bowl in the kitchen."
         He was too tired to fly it, though, and I was afraid he was too fragile to pick up in my mouth.   So I let him cling to my fur.
          As I walked downstairs, he repeated, "Wigged out, wigged out. . . ."
         "Tell me about it," I said, as he feasted on a plum and two grapes.
         "Vicar Roberts has become convinced there's something unnatural in the neighborhood," he said.
         "How strange.   What might have led him to that belief?"
         "The bodies with no blood left in them, and the people with anemia, who all seem to have had vivid dreams involving bats.   Things like that."
         I'd seen Vicar Roberts many times on my rambles, a fat little man, dundrearied, and wearing old-fashioned, square-lensed, gold-framed spectacles.   I'd been told that he often grew very red of complexion at the high points of sermons, splattering little droplets of spittle about, and that he was sometimes given to fits of twitchings followed by unconsciousness and strange transports.
         "It is understandable in someone of an hysterical personality type," I said.
         "I suppose so.   At any rate, he recently took to running about the parish by night, armed with a crossbow and a quiver of bolts, 'flying stakes,' he calls them.   I hear your door!   I'll bet that's him!   Hide me!"
         "No need," I said.   "The master would not let an obvious madman armed with a dangerous weapon come in and search the house.   This is a place of peace and refinement."
         The door was opened and I heard them speak quietly.   Then the vicar's voice was raised.   Jack, being a gentleman, responded in his usual soft,