From: "James Wynn" 
Subject: RE: (urth) Chenille's dagger
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 09:39:34 -0500

Roy stickles:
The cat on the handle is an ordinary cat....

...It's on the page before that "friend" quote. (279,
paper) "He'd got it specially made for me, or anyhow the picture put on."
The "he" is Crane. He did the same thing with the needler he gave
Hyacinth--had it engraved with the namesake flowers.

The guy named Cat is irrelevant. It was Orchid who jumped to the conclusion
that the dagger belonged to a man named Cat--because of the cat image on the
hilt.

Crush perseveres:
The guy named "Cat" is anything but irrelevant. The fact that Poppy lied
about knowing him shows that she, like Musk, is a Trivigaunte spy. The word
"civet" is *Arabic* for "perfume". "Civet" is Musk's real name. The fact
that Musk changed it suggests he had something to hide (since the name
*could* be Vironese as well). If the ownership of the knife came to light,
Blood ("a loyal son of Viron") could conceivably have pieced together Musk's
true heritage. Certainly Spider would have.

Crane *gave* Chenille the knife. But Crane *got* it from Musk. He *said* he
went to Musk for advice, but in fact he took the knife Musk already owned
and had the tail of the "cat" tinted red. Then he gave it to Chenille.
Voila! Crane and Musk "launder" a potentially incriminating piece of
evidence. I guess he *could* have thrown it away, or buried it, or destroyed
it - but I suppose it was nice enough that he couldn't bear to do that.

The connection between "chenille" and the picture is that another name for
the plant "chenille" is "red-hot cat tail" or "burning cattail." It has long
bright red blooms.

As for the connection between the knife and Blood, I just don't believe that
Wolfe would have Silk spend an entire paragraph considering the linkage
between Blood and the dagger for nothing, when there is (I agree) no
evidentiary connection between them. Silk was considering the knife "under
the aupices of the Outsider".


-- Crush





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