The thing in the woods
said at last. "I don't see----"
"They were used against lycanthropy," said Herrick.
I stared at him. I suppose I looked stupid. I felt it. It was as
though some spectre, strange, ghastly, altogether of another world,
had risen up suddenly there before us in these quiet Pennsylvania
woods.
"A mania--subject imagines himself some beast, resulting in actual
physical transformations--exhibits depraved appetites--frequently
homicidal..." I recalled haltingly the words of an old treatise.
"They did more than believe they were animals," said Herrick dryly.
"They seem to have succeeded in impressing their belief pretty
strongly upon their neighbours and relatives. Did you ever dig into
old records of that sort, Austin? The were-wolf stories of the
Middle Ages? They're rather grim reading."
I was silent.
"Remember our facts," he went on. "Menning's mother came from
Westphalia, one of the parts of Europe where the belief in
lycanthropy is most widely spread and where its existence is still
credited among the peasants of today. Lycanthropy was believed to be
a hereditary taint, as transmissible as insanity, which may lie
dormant through one or more generations, so much so that at one time
the relatives of an accused man or woman were all held suspect.
There seems to have been more or less of a mystery about the Mennings
altogether, chiefly on account of the mother's character, and most
particularly in regard to Jakey. Remember also what Lennox said
about the strong persistence of type in both sons, although of
different paternity. We have Lennox's assertion that there was
something peculiar, 'animal', about Jakey, which certainly impressed
him, but which he seemed rather at a loss to describe. Then there is
that unexplained incident when Jakey was with the circus. Whatever
it was, it was something that gave such a shock to the
proprietor--who, remember, had originally conceived the idea of the
wild-man stunt himself, so wasn't likely to have been taken in by
acting--that he sacrificed his best drawing card then and there
sooner than have Jakey remain another night with the show. All the
brother would say was that he 'guessed Jakey acted too well,' which
in itself is fairly significant.
"That Aaron knew, or suspected, certain facts about his brother,
there is no doubt. Why else should he so obstinately oppose any
medical examination, and particularly the idea of Jakey being removed
even temporarily from their control? Why did he make the very
singular statement that Jakey was 'all right in the daytime,' and
that _at night they shut him up_?"
"And the bullet?" I asked.
"Do you remember that Aaron promised if it became necessary he would
take steps? What those steps were he did not say, but I believe
myself that this silver bullet answers the question. Remember the
horror in which lycanthropy was held, the revulsion it excited, and
think whether he would not have resorted to the gravest measures
sooner than have the whole concealed story come to light.
"I think that Aaron had already determined that night, unknown to
their mother, to put an end to the whole thing; that he went out to
seek his half-brother at the time, and under that form, when alone it
would be possible to bring himself to do that which he felt had to be
done. Jakey must have suspected. There was a struggle between the
two, and it was Aaron who was killed, before he had time to use the
silver bullet which he dropped, there, in the moment of unexpected
attack. The old mother must have known the truth; through all her
horror and superstition her love for her first son survived, and
together they concocted the story of Aaron's absence with the wagon.
That she paid bitterly, many times over, for her impulse, there is no
doubt. She was now completely under Jakey's dominion--the dominion
of a being little better than a monster, whom she dared not now
denounce, for who would have believed her story?
"It is certain that what we saw last night is what attacked Lessing,
and had attacked him previously. It reached him through the
skylight, but not altogether as he thought. It climbed. You will
remember that in every instance the attack was from overhead."
"But the thing that... that I touched..." I cried. "It was _furry_!
It----"
I stopped short, taken with a sudden shudder.
"I know," said Herrick.
"I had hoped," he went on, "that you didn't retain any very definite
impression. That's why----"
"_You_ saw it."
"We all saw something. We thought we did."
"And Sliefer..." I paused. "Herrick, there was something else. I
remember now. You were holding me. And you told Sliefer not to
fire. I wondered..."
"They say there is a change, one way or another, at the moment of
death," Herrick said. "I knew it. I tried to stop him." He paused
a moment. "I was too late. That's all."
We sat there for a moment, not speaking. Then Herrick knocked his
pipe out against the boulder and rose to his feet.
"Come on back to the house. Mrs. Searle will have breakfast for us,
and we both look rather a wreck!" He laid a hand on my shoulder.
"Take my advice, Austin, and put this whole thing out of your mind.
I told you in the beginning--there's the other explanation; why not
stand by it? As I say, it covers all the facts. The rest is between
us three. Look at it how you will, whatever happened last night
happened for the best."
I remembered the thing that had cried and twisted on the ground, and
was silent. Herrick was right.
As soon as Lessing was able to travel we went down, the three of us,
to the little cottage on the Sound which they had rented for the
remainder of the fall. Herrick came down for an occasional long
week-end, and it was during one of these, when we were lounging out
on the beach before supper, that he handed me without comment a
little cutting from a Pennsylvania local paper.
It was headed "Man's Body found in Millpond" and stated briefly how
some boys, fishing in Sliefer's dam, had discovered the body of a
man, believed to be that of a certain Aaron Menning, chicken pedlar,
who had disappeared from the neighborhood mysteriously some weeks
before. The body, which had lain for a considerable time in the
water, showed the trace of two bullet wounds, but owing to the
difficulties of medical evidence after so long a time had elapsed it
was not possible to prove that either of these had been sufficient to
cause death, which was brought in, on the finding of the coroner's
jury, as accidental. "It will be remembered," the article concluded,
"that equally mysterious circumstances attended, less than a year
ago, the death of Menning's stepbrother, whose body was found at a
spot not half a mile from the scene of this later tragedy. Though
there was no suggestion of foul play at the time, rumor later
connected Aaron's name, in no uncertain terms, with his stepbrother's
death, a rumor which his disappearance served to strengthen in many
persons' minds. Whatever the circumstances which led to this second
tragedy, and how far the two may be connected, will remain for ever a
mystery, since Aaron's death closes definitely the last chapter in
the story of this singularly ill-fated family."
"What's that?" asked Lessing.
I slipped the cutting into my pocket. My compact with Herrick still
held good.
"Only some more nonsense of Jack's."
Lessing grinned up at me from where he lounged, one bandaged arm
stretched above his head, in the deck-chair.
"I should think, as an engaged man, you ought to be getting
impervious by this time."
"I am. Don't you worry!"
Over the lawn, through the warm-scented dusk, came Mary's voice from
the porch.
"Austin!" she called. "Dick! Are you three going to sit there all
night?"
Herrick moved away.
"Come on," he said over his shoulder. "Supper is ready, and I won't
risk being told again that I monopolize you all the day!"
THE END