Even though Edwin’s technical skills quickly advanced to the point that the editor of Fly Tyer magazine hailed him in 2005 as the “future of fly-tying,” he was constantly thwarted by his inability to find enough feathers. Some recipes were so extravagant that they required over £1,400 worth of feathers, often from species that are now protected. Whenever prized birds appeared on eBay, they were always snapped up by wealthy men.

When one of his mentors, a mysterious Québécois tier by the name of Luc Couturier, heard that Edwin was headed to London to study, he sent his protégé an email, telling him about a magical place. Attached were photos of the bird-filled drawers of the Natural History Museum at Tring.

Once he pulled himself together, Edwin carefully removed one of the birds from the drawer, brought it over to a research table, and took a picture. After he returned it, he surreptitiously snapped a photograph of the cabinet.

He moved to the cabinet that held the king bird of paradise. In 1857, after travelling thousands of miles across deserts and oceans and surviving relentless attacks of malaria, Wallace became the first naturalist to encounter the species in the forests of the Aru Islands, off the southern coast of New Guinea. Overcome by the sight of the crimson-red bird, which shone in certain lights “with a metallic or glassy lustre,” Wallace worried about what would happen if “civilised man” ever discovered it. “We may be sure,” Wallace wrote, that he will “cause the disappearance, and finally the extinction, of these very beings whose wonderful structure and beauty he alone is fitted to appreciate. This consideration must surely tell us that all living things were not made for man.”

Ten king birds of paradise were now within Edwin’s reach. He took a photograph of his favourite specimen, snapped another of the corridor of cabinets, and moved on to the museum’s collection of the South American Cotingidae family of birds, which included the species most coveted by flytiers: the red-ruffed fruitcrow, also known as Indian crow, and the cotinga.

The small cotinga’s turquoise body practically glowed in his hands. Most cotingas for sale were half destroyed, their feathers picked and plucked at by generations of tiers. A set of 10 feathers could fetch £36. Here were dozens of flawless, untouched specimens, each of which could be sold for at least a thousand pounds.

Each time he photographed a new species, he snapped a picture of its location. His camera’s memory chip slowly filled up with a visual map of the vault.

Edwin’s mind raced beyond the sheer monetary value of the museum’s birds to the creative potential they represented. Ever since he tied his first Victorian fly, his pursuit of perfection had been defined by a longing for the skins he could never afford.

To now wade through a seemingly endless supply of birds unstoppered a river of possibilities in Edwin’s imagination. If he owned these birds, he would have an unrivaled stash of feathers for the rest of his life. In a community defined by its longing for the unobtainable, he would be king, and his flies would be unmatched. Even better, he could feature them in the book on fly tying that he hoped to write, cementing his place in history.

EDWIN WOKE UP READY AND CONFIDENT the morning of June 23, 2009. He performed at the academy’s London Soundscapes, a day-long tribute to composers who had left their mark on the city during the past few centuries. In his concert hall locker he had stashed an empty suitcase, a miniature flashlight, a wire cutter, latex gloves, and a glass cutter. After the performance he swapped his flute for the suitcase, made his way to Euston Station, and boarded an evening train to Tring.

Preparations had begun in earnest on June 11, when he’d ordered a diamond‐blade glass cutter through his eBay account: Fluteplayer1988. He’d also ordered a box of 50 mothballs.

He had pored over a map of the museum. He went online and studied maps of the town of Tring, its main streets, side streets, and alleyways. The train station was east of the town centre, separated by a few miles of dimly lit country road. A pathway—Public Footpath 37—would deposit him directly behind the Ornithology Building. There was a wall, but he could easily scale it. There was barbed wire, but he could easily snip it. There was a gap of three feet between the wall and the window on the second floor, but he could reach it.