{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3513", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3513, "subject": "Chenille's dagger", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-10-25T07:34:35+00:00", "last": "2002-10-25T14:39:34+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-10-25T07:34:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Chenille's dagger", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, Crane *does* give Chenille the dagger, but it was originally owned by\nMusk." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's not how I read it. It's on the page before that \"friend\" quote. (279,\npaper) \"He'd got it specially made for me, or anyhow the picture put on.\"\nThe \"he\" is Crane. He did the same thing with the needler he gave\nHyacinth--had it engraved with the namesake flowers." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Poppy was flat out lying when she said there was a guy named Cat who\nshe and sometimes Orpine serviced. Note that the only person who can\ncontradict this story is dead." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The guy named Cat is irrelevant. It was Orchid who jumped to the conclusion\nthat the dagger belonged to a man named Cat--because of the cat image on the\nhilt." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is why Musk becomes so agitated when\nSilk carefully studies the knife. Everyone is looking for the owner of the\nknife as if he is responsible:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The owner of the knife _is_ responsible for Orpine's death--Chenille." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The \"cat\" on the handle is a \"civet\" (or so I read it). \"Civet\" is a type\nof\nfeline but it is also a musky yellowish fluid taken from glands in the anal\npouch of the civet used as a perfume. So civet is a type of musk. Silk when\nstudying the picture ponders the drop of blood and considers its possible\nassociation with Blood the person. So the picture is of a \"civet with\nblood\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The cat on the handle is an ordinary cat. The specific description of the\nhandle's image is: \"a scarlet cat strutted with a tiny black mouse in its\njaws. The cat's fiery tail circled the hilt.\" There is no \"drop of blood\".\nTwo pages later Silk is thinking about the pictured cat, which reminds him\nof the images on the needler. He goes on thinking:\n\n \"Blood's name . . . If the dagger had been made for him, the picture on\nits hilt would have shown blood, presumably: a bloody dagger of the same\ndesign, perhaps, or something of that sort. The cat had held a mouse in its\njaws, and mice thus caught by cats bled, of course; but he could recall *no\nblood* in the picture, and the captive mouse had been quite small. He was no\nartist, but after putting himself in the place of the one who had drawn and\ntinted that picture, he decided that the mouse had been included mostly to\nindicate that *the cat was in fact a cat, and not some other cat-like\nanimal*, a panther for example. The mouse had been a kind of badge, in other\nwords.\" (emphasis added)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Furthermore, Silk considers the mouse in the cat's mouth. He decides it is\na\n\"badge\" of some sort. Well whose badge is the mouse? Apollo's - denoting\nhis\npatronage of medicine. Another connection between Silk and Apollo." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Secondly," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Musk owns Silk's mantaeon, so he has Silk in his power just as the cat has\nthe mouse in his mouth." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The mouse in the image is a \"badge\" only in the sense that it identifies the\ncat as a cat.\n\nSilk continues thinking:\n\n \"The cat itself had been scarlet, *but hardly with blood*; even a large\nmouse would not have bled as much as that, and the cat had presumably been\ntinted to indicate that it was somehow burning. Its upright tail had\nactually been tipped with fire.\" (emphasis added) (255-56, paper)\n\nThe cat on the dagger hilt has nothing to do with Musk. The title of the\nchapter in which Orpine was murdered is \"The Cat With The Red-Hot Tail\". The\nnext chapter, where Silk interviews Chenille, explains the image.\n\n \"Do you know, Patera, I'd never even seen chenille, not to know it was\nmy flower anyway, till he [Crane] brought me a bouquet for my room last\nspring? And I love it--that's when I did my hair this color. He said\nsometimes they call it burning cattail.\" (279, paper)\n\nThis is repeated about three pages before the end of chapter three in LAKE,\nwhen Chenille was at the manse.\n\n \"Crane was a friend, just like I said yesterday. He was nice, and he\nbrought me things, when he didn't have to. You remember about the bouquet of\nchenille? Little stuff like that, but nice. Most of the girls like him, and\nsometimes I give him a free one. He's got a thing for big girls. He sort of\nlaughs about it.\"\n\nWhat the exact connection between \"chenille\" and the plant \"cattail\" may be,\nI don't know. I would speculate that it is because cattail has \"long, brown,\nfuzzy, cylindrical flower spikes\" (Webster's), which probably look something\nlike a caterpillar. At any rate, the text makes the connection. Crane gave\npersonalized gifts to both Hyacinth and Chenille, engraved with images of\ntheir names because neither of them could read.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-10-25T14:39:34+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Chenille's dagger", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy stickles:\nThe cat on the handle is an ordinary cat....\n\n...It's on the page before that \"friend\" quote. (279,\npaper) \"He'd got it specially made for me, or anyhow the picture put on.\"\nThe \"he\" is Crane. He did the same thing with the needler he gave\nHyacinth--had it engraved with the namesake flowers.\n\nThe guy named Cat is irrelevant. It was Orchid who jumped to the conclusion\nthat the dagger belonged to a man named Cat--because of the cat image on the\nhilt.\n\nCrush perseveres:\nThe guy named \"Cat\" is anything but irrelevant. The fact that Poppy lied\nabout knowing him shows that she, like Musk, is a Trivigaunte spy. The word\n\"civet\" is *Arabic* for \"perfume\". \"Civet\" is Musk's real name. The fact\nthat Musk changed it suggests he had something to hide (since the name\n*could* be Vironese as well). If the ownership of the knife came to light,\nBlood (\"a loyal son of Viron\") could conceivably have pieced together Musk's\ntrue heritage. Certainly Spider would have.\n\nCrane *gave* Chenille the knife. But Crane *got* it from Musk. He *said* he\nwent to Musk for advice, but in fact he took the knife Musk already owned\nand had the tail of the \"cat\" tinted red. Then he gave it to Chenille.\nVoila! Crane and Musk \"launder\" a potentially incriminating piece of\nevidence. I guess he *could* have thrown it away, or buried it, or destroyed\nit - but I suppose it was nice enough that he couldn't bear to do that.\n\nThe connection between \"chenille\" and the picture is that another name for\nthe plant \"chenille\" is \"red-hot cat tail\" or \"burning cattail.\" It has long\nbright red blooms.\n\nAs for the connection between the knife and Blood, I just don't believe that\nWolfe would have Silk spend an entire paragraph considering the linkage\nbetween Blood and the dagger for nothing, when there is (I agree) no\nevidentiary connection between them. Silk was considering the knife \"under\nthe aupices of the Outsider\".\n\n\n-- Crush" } ] } ] }