Manly Wade Wellman

“ I told Susan, and she half shrunk, half stiffened at the implication.
We fell to talking about Judge Pursuivant, the charm and the enigma that invested him. Both of us felt gratitude that he had immediately clarified our own innocence in the grisly slayings, but to both came a sudden inspiration, distasteful and disquieting. I spoke first:
"Susan! Why did the judge bring us here?"
"He said, to help face and defeat the monster. But—but——"
"Who is that monster?" I demanded. "What human being puts on a semi-bestial appearance, to rend and kill?" ”

“ I dared it again. "What are you waiting for? I'm not chained down, like Gird. I'll give you a devil of a fight."
I had my fists up and I feinted, boxer-wise, with a little weaving jerk of the knees. The blot of blackness started violently, ripped out a snarl from somewhere inside it, and sprang at me.
I had an impression of paws flung out and a head twisted sidewise, with long teeth bared to snap at my throat. Probably it meant to clutch my shoulders with its fingers—it had them, I had felt them on my knee at the séance. But I had planned my own campaign in those tense seconds. ”

“ But Susan shook her head.
"No, for which of us responded to the call of that thing out there?"
For the hundredth time she gazed fearfully through the fire at the bushes behind which the commanding whine had risen.
"I have within me," she said dully, "a nature that will break out, look and act like a beast-demon, will kill even my beloved father——"
"Please," interjected Judge Pursuivant earnestly, "you must not take responsibility upon yourself for what happened. If the ectoplasm engendered by you made up the form of the killer, the spirit may have come from without." ”

“ Zoberg turned to him, head quizzically aslant. "Why do you uphold your local laws? Or why does Judge Pursuivant study ancient philosophies? Or why do Wills and Susan turn soft eyes upon each other? Because the heart of each so insists."
Susan was clutching my arm. Her fingers bit into my flesh as Zoberg's eyes sought her again.
"I found the daughter of someone I once loved," he went on, with real gentleness in his voice. "Wills, at least, can see in her what I saw. A new inspiration came to me, a wish and a plan to have a comrade in my secret exploits."
"A beast-thing like yourself?" ”

“ The dining-room was chosen, as the barest and quietest room in the house. First I made a thorough examination, poking into corners, tapping walls and handling furniture, to the accompaniment of jovial taunts from Zoberg. Then, to his further amusement, I produced from my grip a big lump of sealing-wax, and with this I sealed both the kitchen and parlor doors, stamping the wax with my signet ring. I also closed, latched and sealed the windows, on the sills of which little heaps of snow had begun to collect.
"You're kind of making sure, Mr. Wills," said Gird, lighting a patent carbide lamp. ”

“ Only the unknown and unknowable can terrify completely. We three were even cheerful over a bottle of wine that William fetched and poured out in three glasses. Judge Pursuivant gave us a toast—"May wolves go hungry!"—and Susan and I drank it gladly.
"Don't forget what's on our side," said the judge, putting down his glass. "I mean the stedfast and courageous heart, of which I preached to Wills last night, and which we can summon from within us any time and anywhere. The werewolf, dauntlessly faced, loses its dread; and I think we are the ones to face it. Now we're ready for action." ”

“ Easy does it," soothed Judge Pursuivant, his own great hand clutching O'Bryant's wrist. "You've forgotten that I showed how Mr. Wills must be innocent."
"I've forgotten what we're here for at all," snapped O'Bryant, gazing around the clearing. "Hey, have I been drunk or something? I said that I'd never——"
"I'll explain," offered Zoberg. "The judge met me in town, and we came together to see you. Remember? You said you would like to avenge your brother's death, and came with us. Then, when you balked at the very edge of this Devil's Croft, I took the liberty of hypnotizing you." ”

“ Zoberg said deeply, "she would be prepared in heart and soul to change at touch of the ointment—the ectoplasm. Then, to me she must turn as a fellow-creature. Together, throughout the world, adventuring in a way unbelievable——"
His voice died, and we let it. He stood in the firelight, head thrown back, manacled hands folded. He might have been a martyr instead of a fiend for whom a death at the stake would be too easy.
"I can tell what spoiled the séance," I told him after a moment. "Gird, sitting opposite, saw that it was you, not Susan, who had changed. ”

“ What could seem more contrary to nature than the warmth and greenness of the inside of Devil's Croft? And what is more simply natural than the hot springs that make it possible?"
"Yet, an envelope of bestiality, beast-muzzle on human face, beast-paws on human hands——"
"I can support that by more werewolf-lore. I don't even have to open Summers, everyone has heard the story. A wolf attacks a traveler, who with his sword lops off a paw. The beast howls and flees, and the paw it leaves behind is a human hand." ”

“ Zoberg sat with bearded chin on lean hand. His joined brows bristled the more as he corrugated his forehead in thought. "We are each a thousand personalities," he said, sententiously if not comfortingly. "How can we rule them all, or rule even one of them?"
O'Bryant said sourly that all this talk was too high flown for him to understand or to enjoy. He dared hope, however, that the case could never be tied up to Miss Susan Gird, whom he had known and liked since her babyhood.
"It can never do that," Zoberg said definitely. ”

“ Teeth gleamed amiably through the beard, and Zoberg nodded again, in frank delight this time. "Oh, we have hopes of you, Wills, where we gave up Houdini."
He had never said that before, not so plainly at any rate. I smiled back. "I've always been willing to be shown. Give me a fool-proof, fake-proof, supernormal phenomenon, Doctor; let me convince myself; then I'll come gladly into the spiritist camp."
"Ach, so you always say!" he exploded, but without genuine wrath. "Why must the burden of proof rest with the spirits? How can you prove that they do not live and move and act? ”

“ She was still seated upon the cloak-draped root, but she had drawn herself tense, like a cat before a mouse-hole. Her head was thrust forward, so far that her neck extended almost horizontally. Her dilated eyes were turned in the direction from which the whining and crooning had come. They had a strange clarity in them, as if they could pierce the twigs and leaves and meet there an answering, understanding gaze.
"Susan!" I cried.
Still she gave no sign that she heard me, if hear me she did. She leaned farther forward, as if ready to spring up and run. ”

“ I managed to blurt, though my voice was drying up in my throat. "Come on, show your face."
"I'm not here to fight you," a good-natured voice assured me. "Why, I seldom even argue, except with proven friends."
I relaxed a trifle, but did not lower my club. "Who are you?"
"Judge Keith Pursuivant," was the level response, as though I had not just finished trying to kill him. "You must be the young man they're so anxious to hang, back in town. Is that right?" ”

“ I said that I would welcome any kind of action whatsoever, and Susan touched my arm as if in endorsement of the remark, Judge Pursuivant's spectacles glittered in approval.
"You two will go into the Devil's Croft," he announced. "I'm going back to town once more."
"Into the Devil's Croft!" we almost shouted, both in the same shocked breath.
"Of course. Didn't we just get through with the agreement all around that the lycanthrope can and must be met face to face? Offense is the best defense, as perhaps one hundred thousand athletic trainers have reiterated." ”

“ But I managed to roll on top, straddling the thing.
"You're not so good on defense," I panted, and brought my other hand to the throat, for I had no other idea save to kill. Paws grasped and tore at my wrists. There was shouting at my back, in Susan's voice and several others. Hands caught me by the shoulders and tried to pull me up and away.
"No!" I cried. "This is it, the werewolf!"
"It's Doctor Zoberg, you idiot," growled O'Bryant in my ear. "Come on, let him up."
"Yes," added Judge Pursuivant, "it's Doctor Zoberg, as you say; but a moment ago it was the monster we have been hunting." ”

“ There's your human hand, with the beast-paw forming upon and around it, then vanishing like wounded ectoplasm. Where's the weak point, Wills? Name it, I challenge you."
I felt the glass shake in my hand, and a chilly wind brushed my spine. "There's one point," I made myself say. "You may think it a slender one, even a quibble. But ectoplasms make human forms, not animal."
"How do you know they don't make animal forms?" Judge Pursuivant crowed, leaning forward across the deck. "Because, of the few you've seen and disbelieved, only human faces and bodies showed? ”

“ Gird and Zoberg complied, and stood up in their shirt-sleeves. I searched and felt them both all over. Gird was a trifle bleak in manner, Zoberg gay and bright-faced. Neither had any concealed apparatus, I made sure. My next move was to set a chair against the parlor door, seal its legs to the floor, and instruct Gird to sit in it. He did so, and I produced a pair of handcuffs from my bag and shackled his left wrist to the arm of the chair.
"Capital!" cried Zoberg. "Do not be so sour, Mr. Gird. I would not trust handcuffs on Mr. Wills—he was once a magician and knows all the escape tricks." ”

“ I nodded gloomily. "If there were ten thousand friendly constables in the neighborhood, instead of a single hostile one, they wouldn't believe us."
"Right," agreed Judge Pursuivant. "We're like the group of perplexed mortals in Dracula, who had only their own wits and weapons against a monster no more forbidding than ours." ”

“ Far away, as though in another world, I heard the rising of the wind that was beating the snow into great drifts—but that was outside the Devil's Croft.
6. "Eyes of Fire!"
It proves something for human habit and narcotic-dependence that my first action upon rising was to pull out a cigarette and light it.
The match flared briefly upon rich greenness. I might have been in a sub-tropical swamp. Then the little flame winked out and the only glow was the tip of my cigarette. I gazed upward for a glimpse of the sky, but found only darkness. Leafy branches made a roof over me. My brow felt damp. ”

“ And Judge Pursuivant had admitted to having one!
What had he learned from it? How had he been so glib about the science—yes, and the psychology—of being a werewolf?
"If what we suspect is true," I said to Susan, "we are here at his mercy. Nobody is going to come in here, not if horses dragged them. At his leisure he will fall upon us and tear us to pieces." ”

“ Zoberg smiled at him, then turned to Judge Pursuivant. "Your ectoplasmic theory of lycanthropy—such as you have explained it to me—is most interesting and, I think, valid. May I advance it a trifle?"
"In what way?" asked the judge.
"Ectoplasm, as you see it, forms the werewolf by building upon the medium's body. But is not ectoplasm more apt, according to the observations of many people, to draw completely away and form a separate and complete thing of itself? The thing may be beastly, as you suggest. ”

“ I cautioned him sharply, and took the lamp from him. "See what you can do for Gird."
He stooped slowly, as though he had grown old. I stepped to one side, putting the lamp on the table. Zoberg spoke again:
"It is absolutely no use, Wills. We can do nothing. Gird has been killed."
I had turned my attention to the girl. She still sagged in her chair, breathing deeply and rhythmically as if in untroubled slumber.
"Susan," I called her. "Susan!"
She did not stir, and Doctor Zoberg came back to where I bent above her. "Susan," he whispered penetratingly, "wake up, child." ”

“ Zoberg gave me a brief, penetrating glance, then seemed to shrivel up in his own chair. He looked almost as exhausted as Susan. I, too, was feeling near to collapse.
"You want to own up, Mr. Wills?" invited O'Bryant.
"I certainly do not," I snapped at him. "You've got the wrong man."
"I thought," he made answer, as though catching me in a damaging admission, "that it was a devil, not a man, who killed Gird." ”

“ Let's talk about materialization—ectoplasm—for the moment." He relaxed, and across his great girth his fingertips sought one another. "Suppose you explain, briefly and simply, what ectoplasm is considered to be."
I was turning toward the back of Richet's book. "It's in here, Judge Pursuivant. To be brief and simple, as you say, certain mediums apparently exude an unclassified material called ectoplasm. This, at first light and vaporescent, becomes firm and takes shape, either upon the body of the medium or as a separate and living creature." ”

“ With all their science, most of the investigators trust too greatly."
Judge Pursuivant shook with gentle laughter. "They are doctors for the most part, and this honesty of theirs is a professional failing that makes them look for it in others. You—begging your pardon—are a magician, a professional deceiver, and you expect trickery in all whom you meet. ”

“ He touched with his forefinger an eye, and I could see that it was bruised and swollen half shut. "A citizen with too ready a fist and too slow a mind has that to answer for."
"I'm partly responsible," I said. "You were trying to help me, I understand, when it happened."
More noise behind him, and two more shapes pushed into the clearing. I recognized Judge Pursuivant, nodding to me with his eyes bright under his wide hat-brim. The other man, angular, falcon-faced, one arm in a sling, I had also seen before. It was Constable O'Bryant. ”

“ Better to be Talbot Wills, lecturer and investigator in the field of exposing fraudulent mediums.
For six years I had known Doctor Otto Zoberg, the champion of spiritism and mediumism, as rival and companion. We had first met in debate under auspices of the Society for Psychical Research in London. I, young enough for enthusiasm but also for carelessness, had been badly out-thought and out-talked. But afterward, Doctor Zoberg had praised my arguments and my delivery, and had graciously taken me out to a late supper. ”

“ Grappled, we fell and rolled over. The beast smell I remembered was all about us, and I knew that jaws were shoving once again at my throat. I jammed my forearm between them, so far into the hinge of them that they could not close nor crush. My other hand clutched the skin of the throat, a great loose fistful, drew it taut and began to twist with all my strength. I heard a half-broken yelp of strangled pain, felt a slackening of the body that struggled against me, knew that it was trying to get away. ”