Crowded Out! and Other Sketches

by S. Frances Harrison

Until I gazed upon the dead I did not feel quite sure of the identity of this pious Sister of Charity. But I only needed to look once upon the ghastly pallor, the ugly lip mark and the long slender figure on the bed before me to recognize her who had once been Mdme. Martinetti.

“And now for the paper,” I said.

“It will be in the room that was hers, if monsieur will accompany.” We walked along several corridors till we reached the room in which hung the parrot, I quite expected it to fly at me again and try to get rid of its miserable secret But no! It sat on its stick, perfectly quiet and rational.

“I cannot find dat paper, it is very strange!” muttered the good sister, turning everything over and over. A light wind playing about the room had perhaps blown it into some corner. I assisted her in the search.

“It surely was in an envelope?” I said to the innocent woman.

“Yes monsieur, yes, and with a seal, for I got the cire—you call it wax—myself and held it for her, la bonne soeur.”

“It is not always wise to leave such letters about,” I put in as meekly as I could “Where was it you saw it last?”

“On dees little table, monsieur.”

Now, “dees little table” was between the two windows, and not far, consequently from the parrot's cage. My eye travelled from the table to the cage as a matter of necessity, and I saw that the bottom of it was strewn with something white—like very, very tiny scraps of paper. “I think you need not look any further,” said I. “Polly, you either are very clever, or else you are a lunatic and a fool. Which is it?”

But I never found out The parrot had got the letter by some means or other and so effectually torn, bitten and made away with it that nothing remained of it for identification except the wax, which it did not touch and left absolutely whole. The secret which had been the parrot's all along belonged to the parrot still, and after having devoured it in that fashion it became satisfied, and never—at least, as far as I am aware—reverted morbidly to the comic refrain which has but one significance for me.