"And now," I said, "tell me--tell me the whole thing. Jack, what was
it?"
We were near the old twisted cedar by the hollow, the tree by which
Aaron had met his death that spring. Herrick sat down on a boulder
by the roadside and began to scrape slowly at his pipe.
"I told you about Menning and his wild-man stunt--all that I found
out the other day. Menning had a criminal twist and he knew how to
turn that trick to his own ends. It is far easier to simulate the
grotesque--the superhuman, if you like--than most people suppose.
Isn't that, after all, the basis of the witch-doctors' power? Even
an ordinary man becomes horrible if you put a mask on him. And
remember that Menning had a streak of abnormality to start with, and
the thing may very easily, as I said, have become an obsession with
him. Anyway that's the best explanation one can put on it, and the
one that Lennox and our friend Sliefer, and Lessing himself, will
agree upon. After all, it pretty well covers the facts."