
A hard‑boiled lieutenant finds himself on a chaotic night in a Boston bar when a brawler storms the place, his head covered in a full plume of feathers instead of hair. The crowd erupts in laughter, the man snaps, and a whirlwind of smashed glass, tossed patrons, and spilled whiskey leaves the police precinct scrambling for answers. The lieutenant, accompanied by a skeptical doctor, is tasked with proving whether the feathers are a bizarre stunt or something far stranger.
The investigation pushes them into a maze of street witnesses, a curious sample of feather‑studded skin, and a city that seems to be hiding a secret beneath its gritty façade. As the duo pieces together clues, the story balances noir humor with a creeping sense of the unknown, hinting that the feathered figure may be more than just a rowdy local. Listeners will be drawn into a witty, tense first act that asks: how far will the law go when the case is truly out of this world?
Language
en
Duration
~22 minutes (21K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
United States: Street & Smith Publications, Incorporated,1946.
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2022-05-29
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1911–1981
A Golden Age science fiction writer with an engineer’s eye for detail, he built stories around communications systems, problem-solving, and life in space. He is especially remembered for the Venus Equilateral tales, which helped give mid-century magazine SF some of its brisk, technical charm.
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