“You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose of making a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was usually kept.  I looked in the drawer, and found none there.  I searched my pockets, hoping to find an old letter, and then my hand fell upon the parchment.  I thus detail the precise mode in which it came into my possession; for the circumstances impressed me with peculiar force.

“No doubt you will think me fanciful—­but I had already established a kind of connection.  I had put together two links of a great chain.  There was a boat lying on a seacoast, and not far from the boat was a parchment—­not A paper—­with a skull depicted on it.  You will, of course, ask ‘where is the connection?’ I reply that the skull, or death’s-head, is the well-known emblem of the pirate.  The flag of the death’s-head is hoisted in all engagements.

“I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper.  Parchment is durable—­almost imperishable.  Matters of little moment are rarely consigned to parchment; since, for the mere ordinary purposes of drawing or writing, it is not nearly so well adapted as paper.  This reflection suggested some meaning—­some relevancy—­in the death’s-head.  I did not fail to observe, also, the form of the parchment.  Although one of its corners had been, by some accident, destroyed, it could be seen that the original form was oblong.  It was just such a slip, indeed, as might have been chosen for a memorandum—­for a record of something to be long remembered and carefully preserved.”

“But,” I interposed, “you say that the skull was not upon the parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle.  How then do you trace any connection between the boat and the skull—­since this latter, according to your own admission, must have been designed (God only knows how or by whom) at some period subsequent to your sketching the scarabaeus?”

“Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, at this point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving.  My steps were sure, and could afford but a single result.  I reasoned, for example, thus:  When I drew the scarabaeus, there was no skull apparent on the parchment.  When I had completed the drawing I gave it to you, and observed you narrowly until you returned it.  You, therefore, did not design the skull, and no one else was present to do it.  Then it was not done by human agency.  And nevertheless it was done.

“At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, and did remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which occurred about the period in question.  The weather was chilly (O rare and happy accident!), and a fire was blazing on the hearth.  I was heated with exercise and sat near the table.  You, however had drawn a chair close to the chimney.  Just as I placed the parchment in your hand, and as you were in the act of inspecting it, Wolf, the Newfoundland,