The Yellow Sign & Other Stories

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Now, Monsieur Darrel,” said the Purple Emperor, lifting a fat finger and shooting a wicked glance at me, “Now, Monsieur Dar- rel, which did you wear last night on your midnight stroll--sabots or shoes?”

  I thought a moment. “Shoes--no, sabots. I just slipped on my chaussons and went our in my sabots.” “Which was it, shoes or sabots?” snarled the Purple Emperor. “Sabots, you fool.”

  “Are these your sabots?” he asked, lifting up a wooden shoe with my initials cut on the instep. “Yes,” I replied.

  “Then how did this blood come on the other one?” he shouted, and held up a sabot, the mate to the first, on which a drop of blood had spattered.

  “I haven’t the least idea,” I said calmly; but my heart was beating very fast and I was furiously angry. “You blockhead!” I said, controlling my rage, “I’ll make you pay for this when they catch Yves Terrec and convict him. Brigadier Durand, do your duty if you think I am under suspicion. Arrest me, but grant me one favour. Put me in the Red Admiral’s cottage, and I’ll see whether I can’t find some clew that you have overlooked. Of course, I won’t disturb anything until the Commissaire arrives. Bah! You all make me very ill.”:

  “He’s hardened,” observed the Purple Emperor, wagging his head.

  “What motive had I to kill the Red Admiral?” I asked them all scornfully. And they all cried:

  “None! Yves Terrec is the man!”

  Passing out of the door I swing around and shook my finger at the Purple Emperor. “Oh, I’ll make you dance for this, my friend,” I said; and I followed Brigadier Durand across the street to the cottage of the murdered man.

  III

  They took me at my word and placed a gendarme with a bared sabre at the gateway by the hedge. “Give me your parole,” said poor Durand, “and I will let you go where you wish.” But I refused, and began prowling about the cottage looking for clews. I found lots of things that some people would have considered most important, such as ashes from the Red Admiral’s pipe, footprints in a dusty vegetable bin, bottles smelling of Pouldu cider, and dust--oh, lots of dust!--but I was not an expert, only a stupid, everyday amateur; so I defaced the footprints with my thick shooting boots, and I declined to examine the pipe ashes through a microscope, although the Red Admiral’s microscope stood on the table close at hand.

  At last I found what I had been looking for, some long wisps of straw, curiously depressed and flattened in the middle, and I was cer- tain I had found the evidence that would settle Yves Terrec for the rest of his life. It was plain as the nose on your face. The straws were sabot straws, flattened where to foot had pressed them, and sticking straight out where they projected beyond the sabot. Now nobody in St. Gildas used straw in sabots except a fisherman who lived near St. Julien, and the straw in his sabots was ordinary yellow wheat straw! This straw, or rather these straws, were from the stalks of the red wheat which only grows inland, and which, everybody in St. Gildas knew, Yves Terrec wore in his sabots. I was perfectly satisfied; and when, three hours later, a hoarse shouting from the Bannalec Road brought me to the window, I was not surprised to see Yves Terrec, bloody, dishevelled, hatless, with his strong arms bound behind him, walking with bent head between two mounted gendarmes. The crowd around him swelled every minute, crying: Parricide! parricide! Death to the murderer!” As he passed my window I saw great clods of mud on his dusty sabots, from the heels of which projected wisps of red wheat straw. Then I walked back into the Red Admiral’s study, determined to find what the microscope would show on the wheat straws. I examined one very carefully, and then, my eyes aching, I rested my chin on my hand and leaned back in the chair. I had not been as fortunate as some detectives, for there was no evidence that the straws had ever been used in a sabot at all. Furthermore, directly across the hallway stood a carved Breton chest, and now I noticed for the first time that, from beneath the closed lid, dozens of similar red wheat straws projected, bent exactly as mine were bent by the weight of the lid.

  I yawned in disgust. It was apparent that I was not cut out to be a detective, and I bitterly pondered over the difference between clews in real life and clews in a detective story. After a while I rose, walked over to the chest and opened the lid. The interior was wadded with the read wheat straws, and on this waddling lay two curious glass jars, two or three small vials, several empty bottles labelled chloroform, a collecting jar of cyanide of potassium, and a book. In a farther corner of the chest were some letters bearing English stamps, and also the torn coverings of two parcels, all from England, and all directed to the Red Admiral under his proper name of “Sieur Louis Jean Terrec, St. Gildas, par Moëlan, Finistére.”

  All these traps I carried over to the desk, shut the lid of the chest, and sat down to read the letters. They were written in commercial French, evidently by an Englishman.

  Freely translated, the contents of the first letter were as follows: “LONDON, June 12, 1894.

  “DEAR MONSIEUR (sic): Your kind favour of the 19th inst. received and contents noted. The latest work on the Lepidoptera of England is Blowzer’s How to catch British Butterflies, with notes and tables, and an introduction by Sir Thomas Sniffer. The price of this work (in one volume, calf) is [BREAKPOINT POUND SIGN]5 or 125 francs of French money. A post-office order will receive our prompt attention. We beg to remain,

  “Yours, etc.

  “FRADLEY & TOOMER,

  “470 Regent Square, London, W. W.”

  The next letter was even less interesting. It merely stated that the money had been received and the book would be forwarded. The third engaged my attention, and I shall quote it, the translation being a free one:

  “DEAR SIR: Your letter of the 1st of July was duly received, and we at once referred it to Mr. Fradley himself. Mr. Fradley being much interested in your question, sent your letter to Professor Sch- weineri, of the Berlin Entomological Society, whose note Blowzer re- fers to on page 630, in his How to catch British Butterflies. We have just received an answer from Professor Schweineri, which we trans- late into French--(see inclosed slip). Professor Schweineri begs to present you two jars of cythyl, prepared under his supervision. We forward the same to you. Trusting that you will find everything satis- factory, we remain,

  “Yours sincerely,

  “FRADLEY & TOOMER.”

  The inclosed slip read as follows:

  “Messrs. FRADLEY & TOOMER, “GENTLEMEN: Cythaline, a complex hydrocarbon, was first used by Professor Schnoot, of Antwerp, a year ago. I discovered an analogous formula about the same time and named it cythyl. I had used it with great success everywhere. It is as certain as a magnet. I beg to present you three small jars, and would be pleased to have you forward two of them to your correspondent in St. Gildas with my compliments. Blowzer’s quotation of me, on page 630 of his glorious work, How to catch British Butterflies, is correct.

  “Yours, etc.,

  “HEINRICH SCHWEINERI,

  P.H.D., D.D., D.S., M.S.”

  When I finished this letter I folded it up and put it in my pock - et with the others. Then I opened Blowzer’s valuable work, How to catch British Butterflies, and turned to page 630.

  Now, although the Red Admiral could only have acquired the book very recently, and although all the other pages were perfectly clean, this particular page was thumbed black, and heavy pencil marks inclosed a paragraph at the bottom of the page. This is the paragraph:

  “Professor Schweineri says: ‘Of the two old methods used by collectors for the capture of the swift-winged, high-flying Apatu- ra Iris, or Purple Emperor, the first, which was using a long-handled net, proved unsuccessful once in a thousand times; and the second, the placing of bait upon the ground, such as decayed meat, dead cats, rats, etc., was not only disagreeable, even for an enthusiastic collector, but also very uncertain. Once in five hundred times would the splendid butterfly leave the tops of his favourite oak trees to circle about the fetid bait offered. I have found cythyl a perfectly sure bait to draw this beautiful butterfly to the groun
d, where it can be easily captured. An ounce of cythyl placed in a yellow saucer under an oak tree, will draw to it every Apatura Iris within a radius of twenty miles. So, if any collector who possesses a little cythyl, even though it be in a sealed bottle in his pocket--if such a collector does not find a single Apatura Iris fluttering close about him within an hour, let him be sat- isfied that the Apatura Iris does not inhabit his country.’”

  When I finished reading this note I sat for a long while thinking hard. Then I examined the two jars. They were labelled “Cythyl.” One was full, the other nearly full. “The rest must be on the corpse of the Red Admiral,” I thought, “no matter if it is in a corked bottle--”

  I took all the things back to the chest, laid them carefully on the straw, and closed the lid. The gendarme sentinel at the gate saluted me respectfully as I crossed over to the Groix Inn. The Inn was surrounded by an excited crowd, and the hallway was choked with gendarmes and peasants. On every side they greeted me cordially, announcing that the read murderer was caught; but I pushed by them without a word and ran upstairs to find Lys. She opened her door when I knocked and threw both arms about my neck. I took her to my breast and kissed her. After a moment I asked her if she would obey me no matter what I commanded, and she said she would, with a proud humility that touched me.

  “Then go at once to Yvette in St. Julien,” I said. “Ask her to harness the dog-cart and drive; you to the convent in Quimperlé. Wait for me there. Will you do this without questioning me, my darling?”

  She raised her face to mine. “Kiss me,” she said innocently; the next moment she had vanished. I walked deliberately into the Purple Emperor’s room and peered into the gauze-covered box which held the chrysalis of Apatura Iris. It was as I expected. The chrysalis was empty and transparent, and a great crack ran down the middle of its back, but, on the netting inside the box, a magnificent butterfly slowly waved its burnished purple wings; for the chrysalis had given up its silent tenant, the butterfly symbol of immortality. Then a great fear fell upon me. I know now that it was the fear of the Black Priest, but neither then more for years after did I know that the Black Priest had ever lived on earth. As I bent over the box I heard a confused murmur outside the house which ended in a furious shout of “Parricide!” and I heard the gendarmes ride away behind a wagon which rattled sharply on the flinty high- way. I went to the window. In the wagon sat Yves Terrec, bound and wild-eyed, two gendarmes at either side of him, and all around the wagon rode mounted gendarmes whose bared sabres scarcely kept the crowd away.

  “Parricide!” they howled. “Let him die!” I stepped back and opened the gauze-covered box. Very gently but firmly I took the splendid butterfly by its closed fore wings and lifted it unharmed between my thumb and forefinger. Then, holding it concealed behind my back, I went down into the café.

  Of all the crowd that had filled it, shouting for the death of Yves Terrec, only three persons remained seated in front of the huge empty fireplace. They were the Brigadier Durand, Max Fortin, the chemist from Quimperlé, and the Purple Emperor. The latter looked abashed when I entered, but I paid no attention to him and walked straight to the chemist.

  “Monsieur Fortin,” I said, “do you know much about hydrocarbons?” “They are my specialty,” he said astonished.

  “Have you ever heard of such a thing as cythyl?”

  “Schweineri’s cythyl? Oh, yes! We use it in perfumery.” “Good!” I said. “Has it an odour?”

  “No--and, yes. One is always aware of its presence, but really nobody can affirm it has an odour. It is curious,” he continued, looking at me, “it is a very curious you should have asked me that, for all day I have been imagining I detected the presence of cythyl.”

  “Do you imagine so now?” I asked.

  “Yes, more than ever.”

  I sprang to the front door and tossed out the butterfly. The splen - did creature beat the air for a moment, flitted uncertainly hither and thither, and then, to my astonishment, sailed majestically back into the café and alighted on the hearthstone. For a moment I was nonpulssed, but when my eyes rested on the Purple Emperor I comprehended in a flash.

  “Lift the hearthstone!” I cried to the Brigadier Durand; “pry it up with your scabbard!”

  The Purple Emperor suddenly fell forward in his chair, his face ghastly white, his jaw loose with terror. “What is cythyl?” I shouted, seizing him by the arm; but he plunged heavily from his chair, face downward on the floor, and at the same moment a cry from the chemist made me turn. There stood the Brigadier Durand, one hand supporting the hearthstone, one hand raised in horror. There stood Max Fortin, the chemist, rigid with excitement, and below, in the hollow bed where the hearthstone had rested, lay a crushed mass of bleeding human flesh, from the midst of which stared a cheap glass eye. I seized the Purple Emperor and dragged him to his feet.

  “Look!” I cried; “look at your old friend, the Red Admiral!” but he only smiled in a vacant way, and rolled his head muttering; “Bait for butterflies! Cythyl! Oh, no, no, no! You can’t do it, Admiral, d’ye see. I alone own the Purple Emperor! I alone am the Purple Emperor!”

  And the same carriage that bore me to Quimperlé to claim my bride, carried him to Quimper, gagged and bound, a foaming, howling lunatic.

  — This, then, is the story of the Purple Emperor. I might tell you a pleasanter story if I chose; but concerning the fish that I had hold of, whether it was a salmon, a frilse, or a sea trout, I may not say, because I have promised Lys, and she has promised me, that no power on earth shall wring from our lips the mortifying confession that the fish escaped.