For answer he thrust one of them, some six hundred pages in dark
blue cloth, across the desk and into my hands. "_Thirty Years of
Psychical Research_, by the late Charles Richet, French master in
the spirit-investigation field," he informed me. "Faithfully and
interestingly translated by Stanley De Brath. Published here in
America, in 1923."
I took the book and opened it. "I knew Professor Richet, slightly.
Years ago, when I was just beginning this sort of thing, I was
entertained by him in London. He introduced me to Conan Doyle."
"Then you're probably familiar with his book. Yes? Well, the other,"
and he took up the second volume, almost as large as the Richet
and bound in light buff, "is by Montague Summers, whom I call the
premier demonologist of today. He's gathered all the lycanthropy-lore
available."
I had read Mr. Summers' _Geography of Witchcraft_ and his two essays on
the vampire, and I made bold to say so.
"This is a companion volume to them," Judge Pursuivant told me, opening
the book. "It is called _The Werewolf_." He scrutinized the flyleaf.
"Published in 1934--thoroughly modern, you see. Here's a bit of Latin,
Mr. Wills: _Intrabunt lupi rapaces in vos, non parcentes gregi._"
I crinkled my brow in the effort to recall my high school Latin, then
began slowly to translate, a word at a time: "'Enter hungry wolves----'"
"Save that scholarship," Judge Pursuivant broke in. "It's more early
Scripture, though not so early as the bit about the hairy ones--vulgate
for a passage from the Acts of the Apostles, twentieth chapter,
twenty-ninth verse. 'Ravenous wolves shall enter among you, not sparing
the flock.' Apparently that disturbing possibility exists even today."
He leafed through the book. "Do you know," he asked, "that Summers
gives literally dozens of instances of lycanthropy, things that are
positively known to have happened?"
I took another sip of whisky and water. "Those are only legends,
surely."
"They are nothing of the sort!" The judge's eyes protruded even more in
his earnestness, and he tapped the pages with an excited forefinger.
"There are four excellent cases listed in his chapter on France
alone--sworn to, tried and sentenced by courts----"
"But weren't they during the Middle Ages?" I suggested.
He shook his great head. "No, during the Sixteenth Century, the peak
of the Renaissance. Oh, don't smile at the age, Mr. Wills. It produced
Shakespeare, Bacon, Montaigne, Galileo, Leonardo, Martin Luther;
Descartes and Spinoza were its legitimate children, and Voltaire
builded upon it. Yet werewolves were known, seen, convicted----"
"Convicted on what grounds?" I interrupted quickly, for I was beginning
to reflect his warmth.
For answer he turned more pages. "Here is the full account of the case
of Stubbe Peter, or Peter Stumpf," he said. "A contemporary record,
telling of Stumpf's career in and out of wolf-form, his capture in the
very act of shifting shape, his confession and execution--all near
Cologne in the year 1589. Listen."
He read aloud: "'Witnesses that this is true. Tyse Artyne. William
Brewar. Adolf Staedt. George Bores. With divers others that have seen
the same.'" Slamming the book shut, he looked up at me, the twinkle
coming back into his spectacled eyes. "Well, Mr. Wills? How do those
names sound to you?"
"Why, like the names of honest German citizens."
"Exactly. Honest, respectable, solid. And their testimony is hard to
pass off with a laugh, even at this distance in time, eh?"
He had almost made me see those witnesses, leather-jerkined and
broad-breeched, with heavy jaws and squinting eyes, taking their turn
at the quill pen with which they set their names to that bizarre
document. "With divers others that have seen the same"--perhaps too
frightened to hold pen or make signature....
"Still," I said slowly, "Germany of the Renaissance, the Sixteenth
Century; and there have been so many changes since."
"Werewolves have gone out of fashion, you mean? Ah, you admit
that they might have existed." He fairly beamed his triumph. "So
have beards gone out of fashion, but they will sprout again if we
lay down our razors. Let's go at it another way. 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."
"And you don't believe in this phenomenon?" he prompted, with something
of insistence.
"I have never said that I didn't," I replied truthfully, "even before
my experience of this evening went so far toward convincing me. But,
with the examples I have seen, I felt that true scientific control was
lacking. 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. Perhaps a good lawyer with trial experience, with a level
head and a sense of competent material evidence for both sides, should
attend these séances, eh?"
"You're quite right," I said heartily.
"But, returning to the subject, what else can be said about ectoplasm?
That is, if it actually exists."
I had found in Richet's book the passage for which I had been
searching. "It says here that bits of ectoplasm have been secured
in rare instances, and that some of these have been examined
microscopically. There were traces of fatty tissue, bacterial forms and
epithelium."
"Ah! Those were the findings of Schrenck-Notzing. A sound man and
a brilliant one, hard to corrupt or fool. It makes ectoplasm sound
organic, does it not?"
* * * * *
I nodded agreement, and my head felt heavy, as if full of sober and
important matters. "As for me," I went on, "I never have had much
chance to examine the stuff. Whenever I get hold of an ectoplasmic
hand, it melts like butter."
"They generally do," the judge commented, "or so the reports say. Yet
they themselves are firm and strong when they touch or seize."
"Right, sir."
"It's when attacked, or even frightened, as with a camera flashlight,
that the ectoplasm vanishes or is reabsorbed?" he prompted further.
"So Richet says here," I agreed once more, "and so I have found."
"Very good. Now," and his manner took on a flavor of the legal, "I
shall sum up:
"Ectoplasm is put forth by certain spirit mediums, who are mysteriously
adapted for it, under favorable conditions that include darkness,
quiet, self-confidence. It takes form, altering the appearance of
the medium or making up a separate body. It is firm and strong, but
vanishes when attacked or frightened. Right so far, eh?"
"Right," I approved.
"Now, for the word _medium_ substitute _wizard_." His grin burst
out again, and he began to mix a third round of drinks. "A wizard,
having darkness and quiet and being disposed to change shape, exudes a
material that gives him a new shape and character. Maybe it is bestial,
to match a fierce or desperate spirit within. There may be a shaggy
pelt, a sharp muzzle, taloned paws and rending fangs. To a terrified
victim he is doom itself. But to a brave adversary, facing and fighting
him----"
He flipped his way through Summers' book, as I had with Richet's.
"Listen: '... the shape of the werewolf will be removed if he be
reproached by name as a werewolf, or if again he be thrice addressed
by his Christian name, or struck three blows on the forehead with a
knife, or that three drops of blood should be drawn.' Do you see the
parallels, man? Shouted at, bravely denounced, or slightly wounded,
his false beast-substance fades from him." He flung out his hands, as
though appealing to a jury. "I marvel nobody ever thought of it before."
"But nothing so contrary to nature has a natural explanation," I
objected, and very idiotic the phrase sounded in my own ears.
He laughed, and I could not blame him. "I'll confound you with another
of your own recent experiences. 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."
"That's an old one, in every language."
"Probably because it happened so often. 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? My reply is
there in your hands. Open Richet's book to page 545, Mr. Wills. Page
545 ... got it? Now, the passage I marked, about the medium Burgik.
Read it aloud."
He sank back into his chair once more, waiting in manifest delight. I
found the place, underscored with pencil, and my voice was hoarse as I
obediently read:
"'My trouser leg was strongly pulled and a strange, ill-defined
form that seemed to have paws like those of a dog or small monkey
climbed on my knee. I could feel its weight, very light, and
something like the muzzle of an animal touched my cheek.'"
"There you are, Wills," Judge Pursuivant was crying. "Notice that it
happened in Warsaw, close to the heart of the werewolf country. Hmmm,
reading that passage made you sweat a bit--remembering what you saw in
the Devil's Croft, eh?"