I told him that it suggested a parcel from the druggist's. I had often seen just such twine about a druggist's parcel.
Perkins sniffed disdainfully.
“Druggists?” he exclaimed with disgust. “Mystery! Blood! 'The Crimson Cord.' Daggers! Murder! Strangling! Clues! 'The Crimson Cord'—”
He motioned wildly with his hands, as if the possibilities of the phrase were quite beyond his power of expression.
“It sounds like a book,” I suggested.
“Great!” cried Perkins. “A novel! The novel! Think of the words 'A Crimson Cord' in blood-red letters six feet high on a white ground!” He pulled his hat over his eyes, and spread out his hands; and I think he shuddered.
“Think of 'A Crimson Cord,'” he muttered, “in blood-red letters on a ground of dead, sepulchral black, with a crimson cord writhing through them like a serpent.”