“Eh bien, my friend, do not think the enemy is slow to take advantage of his opportunity. By no means. If there be even one person at the séance whose subconscious locks up unholy thoughts—and who has been entirely free from thought-dominance of one of the Seven Deadly Sins throughout his life?—the Powers of Evil have a fifth columnist within the gates. That like attracts like is a dominant law of nature, and the law of similarity is one of the first rules of psychology. The gateway of the psyche is thrown open to whoever may enter in.
“Now, in such circumstances who would be the easiest one attacked? Madame Hildegarde is not strong. Her blood stream, her whole system must care for two instead of one, thereby lessening her powers of resistance.
“You ask a sign? Consider what occurred. A rapping announces a man-spirit seeking communication. His name is asked. He answers. Eh bien, I shall say so! He gives his great name, for there is little fear that anyone present will recognize him. ‘Gilles Garnier who lived at Saint Bonnot in the reign of King Charles,’ he brazenly announces himself. Do you perhaps recognize him?” He lifted his brows interrogatively.
“Why, no; never heard of him,” I confessed.
“Bien. Neither had the others. His name, his nationality, his epoch, all sounded ‘romantic’ to a circle of fat-headed fools.
“But Jules de Grandin knew him! As you have studied the history of medicine and anaesthesia and the recurrent plagues which have scourged the world, so I have studied the history of those other plagues which destroyed the body or soul, sometimes both together. Listen, I will tell you of Gilles Garnier:
“In 1573 when Charles IX sat on the throne of France there dwelt at Saint Bonnot, near Dôle, a fellow named Gilles Garnier. He was an ill-favored lout, and those who knew him best knew little good of him. The country folk called him ‘the hermit,’ but the title carried with it no attribute of sanctity. Quite otherwise.
“Midsummer came that fateful year, and with it complaints of dogs and sheep killed, of little children torn to bits along the roadside and beneath the hedges. Three wandering minstrels—all veterans of the wars and stout swordsmen—were set upon as they rode through the wood of Saint Bonnot one night, and one of them was all but killed, though they resisted fiercely. The countryside was terrorized and even men-at-arms preferred to stay at home by night, for a loup-garou, or werewolf, the like of which had never been known, had claimed the land for his own from sunset to cock-crow.
“One evening in the autumn when the fields were all but nude of vegetation three laborers hurried to their homes at Chastenoy by a woodland shortcut, and heard the piteous screams of a small girl. They rushed to her aid with their billhooks and in a little clearing in the wood beheld a terrifying sight: With her back to a tree a little shepherdess defended herself as best she could with her shepherd’s crook, while before her crowded a monstrous creature which never ceased its devilish baying as it leaped at her. As the rescuers rushed forward the thing fled from them and disappeared into the bracken.”
He paused to light another cigarette, then: “In court when there is contrariety in testimony, supposing all witnesses had equal observation, which version would be believed?” he asked.
“Why, that supported by the greatest number of witnesses, I suppose,” I answered.
“Very good. That seems logical, does it not? Consider then: Next day when the peasants laid their story before the authorities one swore the child’s assailant had a man’s body, though covered with hair; the other two declared it had the body of a wolf, light-grey in color, but with the eyes of a man.
“Perhaps you will recall that the able Monsieur Fischer told us this morning that the beast that frightened him had ‘eyes like a Chinaman’?
“November 14, 1573, a little boy of eight disappeared. The child had last been seen within a cross-bow’s shot of the city gates, yet he had vanished as if swallowed up. Morbleu, swallowed up is right! Circumstantial evidence involved this so unsaintly hermit Gilles Garnier, and a sergent de ville and six arquebusiers went forth to arrest him shortly after noon, November 16. His trial followed quickly.
“It is a curious circumstance, often commented on, that those involved in such crimes seldom denied guilt when put on trial. This Garnier admitted having made a pact with Satan whereby he was given power of transforming himself into a wolf at will, provided he willed it between sunset and cock-crow.
“The trouveurs he had attacked appeared against him, and positively identified him by his eyes. So did the little shepherdess whom he had nearly killed. The verdict, of course, was guilty, and the sentence—by the way, can you recall the date Mademoiselle Noyer convoked her séance at Twelvetrees?”
“H’m, let me see—” I made a hasty mental calculation—“why, yes, it was the twenty-sixth of November.”
“Précisément. And it was on November 26, 1573, that Gilles Garnier, forever after to be known as the Wolf of Saint Bonnot, having been found guilty of the crime of lycanthropy, was dragged for half a mile over a rough road by ropes attached to his ankles, bound to a stake and given to the flames. That was no mere coincidence, my friend. For almost five centuries Gilles Garnier’s wicked, earthbound spirit has hovered in the air, invisible and impotent, but raging to do evil. Upon the anniversary of his execution his memory is strongest, for jealousy of life and eagerness to return and raven once again are greatest then. He beats against the portals of our world like the wolf at the doors of les trois petit cochons of the nursery story, and where he finds a door weak enough—he breaks through. Yes, indubitably. It is so.”
“But see here,” I objected, “It’s all well enough to say he’s seized Hildegarde’s brain—I shan’t dispute that point with you—but how’s he able to manifest himself physically? It might have been a vision or a ghost or spectre, whatever you wish to call it, Fischer saw in the cemetery, or that Norval saw sporting with his wife on the lawn at Twelvetrees, but it was no unsubstantial wraith that dug the little Doyle girl from her grave and tossed her poor desecrated body back into its casket. It won’t do to say Hildegarde did it. Even granting she had the supernormal strength of the deranged the task would have been physically impossible for her.”
“Incomparable Trowbridge!” he cried delightedly. “Always, when it looks darkest, you do show me a light in the blackness. To you Madame Hildegarde and I owe our salvation. No less!”
“There isn’t any need to be sarcastic—”
“Sarcastic? Pour l’amour d’une grenouille verte, who speaks the sarcasm? You have resolved a most damnably complex problem into a most simple solution. You know—at least, I so inform you—that one of the common phenomena associated with spiritistic séances is the production of light. Numerous mediums have the power of attracting or emitting luminance, and even in small amateur circles where there is in all truth little enough ‘light’ in the psychic sense, such elemental phenomena are produced. What is this light? Some of it may be true spirit-phenomena, but mostly it is nothing but human mental energy manifested as light waves and given off by the concerted thought of the sitters at the séance. Sometimes the essence given off is more substantial than mere vibrations capable of being recognized as light. There is unquestioned proof of true materializations at séances. Very well, what makes such materialization possible?
“A spiritual being, whether it be the ghost of one once human or otherwise, possesses passions, but neither body nor parts to make them effective. Some ghosts may show themselves, others may not, and it is the latter which visit séances in hope of materialization. Of themselves they cannot materialize any more than the most skilled bricklayer can construct a house without bricks. Ha, but a form of energy is radiated by the sitters at the séance, something definite as radio waves, yet not to be seen or touched or handled. This we call psychoplasm. If enough of it be present, the hovering ghost, spirit or demon can so change its vibrations, so compress it as to render it solid and ponderable. Enfin, he builds himself a body.
“Normally the psychoplasm return
s to the bodies which gave it off, once its work is done. But suppose the spirit visitor is a larcener—one who so greatly desires once more to live and move and have his being in this world that he will not return that which furnished him a corporeal body? What then? There, my friend, lies the great danger of the séance. It may unwittingly give bodily structure to a discarnate evil entity. So it was undoubtedly in this case. Yes; of course.”
“Well, where’s the solution of the problem you said I’d furnished?”
“Right here, pardieu! I shall reassemble the sitters at the séance and make that thief Gilles Garnier give back what he stole from them. I shall most assuredly do that, and do it right away, this very night.”
ALL AFTERNOON HE WAS on the telephone, tracing down the ten who had composed the circle at Twelvetrees. When all had agreed to meet at Fleetwood’s town house that evening he rose warily. “Do not wait dinner for me, my friend,” he told me sadly. “I would rather lose a finger than forego the little young piglet roasting in the oven, but something more important than young roast pig is involved here. I shall dine at an hotel in New York, hélas.”
“Why, where are you going?”
“To a booking agency of the theater.”
“A theatrical booking agency—”
“But yes. I have said so. Meet me at Monsieur Fleetwood’s at ten tonight, if you please. À bientôt!”
Half-past nine was sounding on the clock in Fleetwood’s drawing-room before he put in his appearance, accompanied by a tall, pale-faced man in poorly fitting evening clothes, a virtuoso’s mop of long dark hair and deep-set melancholy eyes. “Prof. Morine, Dr. Trowbridge,” de Grandin introduced. “Monsieur Fleetwood, Prof. Morine.
“Professor Morine is a stage hypnotist,” he explained in a lower tone. “At present he is without an engagement, but the gentlemen at the theatrical agency recommended him without reserve. His fee tonight will be one hundred dollars. You agree?” He looked inquiringly at Fleetwood.
“If it’ll help cure Hildegard it’s cheap at twice the price.”
“Bien. Let us say one hundred and fifty. Remember, the Professor can secure no advertisement from tonight. Moreover, he has promised to forget all which transpires in this house.”
“All right, all right,” Fleetwood answered petulantly, “let’s get started.”
“At once. Is all prepared? If you will kindly make excuse to have Madame your wife leave the room for a moment?”
Norval whispered something in Hildegarde’s ear, and as they left the apartment together de Grandin addressed the company:
“Messieurs, Mesdames, we are assembled here tonight in an endeavor to duplicate conditions which obtained at Twelvetrees when Madame Fleetwood first became indisposed. Upon my honor I assure you no advantage will be taken of you, but it is necessary that you all submit to a state of light hypnosis. I shall stand by and personally see that all goes well. Do you agree?”
One after another of the guests reluctantly agreed until he reached Mazie Noyer. “Indeed, I won’t,” she answered shortly. “You just want to get me in that man’s power to make a fool of me!”
“Parbleu, I damn think nature has forestalled us in that!” he muttered, but aloud he replied, “As you wish, Mademoiselle. You will excuse us while we perform our work?” With a frigid bow he turned from her and motioned the others to the next room.
All furniture had been taken from the apartment save a large round table and a dozen chairs. About the latter de Grandin traced a pentagram composed of interlaced triangles, and in each of its points he set a tall wax candle, a tiny sharp-pointed dagger with the tip outward, and a small crucifix.
Norval led in Hildegarde, and as the sitters took their places round the table Prof. Morine walked slowly from one to another, stroking each forehead and whispering soothingly. “All right, Doctor,” he called softly as he completed the circuit. “What next?”
The Frenchman lighted the candles, murmuring some sort of incantation as each took flame, surveyed the dimly lit room for a moment, then turned to the Professor. “Bid them take orders from me, if you please,” he answered.
While Prof. Morine repeated the command, de Grandin drew five shallow silver dishes from beneath the table, poured some thick, dark fluid into each from a prodigious hip-flask, and from another bottle poured some other liquor, dark like the first but thinner and less viscid. As he recorked the second flask I smelled the pleasant heady odor of port wine.
Each of the five dishes he placed outside the angles of the pentagram, then drew two small ecclesiastical censers from beneath the table. “Keep them in motion, my friends,” he commanded as he set the powdered incense glowing and handed the Professor and me the thuribles. “Should anything appear in the darkness, swing your censers toward it without ceasing.”
Turning from us to the sitters at the table he ordered, “You will concentrate with all your force upon recovering what is yours, Messieurs, Mesdames. You will say continuously, ‘Gilles Garnier, give back that which you withhold!’ Begin!”
The low, insistent monotone began—“Gilles Garnier, give back that which you withhold—Gilles Garnier, give back that which you withhold!”
The ceaseless repetition made me drowsy. I stared about the candlelit room sleepily, wondering when it would stop, and as de Grandin brushed past whispered, “Why’d you bring in this professional hypnotist? You’re adept at that kind of thing, why bring in a stranger?”
“Tiens,” he whispered back, “there were ten of them to be subjected, counting the so odious Mademoiselle Noyer. To put them all beneath the spell would have exhausted me, and le bon Dieu knows I shall require all my strength and freshness. Ha, regardez, it comes!”
A feeling of intense cold crept into the air, and the candles flickered as if in a breeze, though the curtains at the windows hung dead-still. From one of the vessels by a star-point there came a strange soft sound, such as a cat makes when it laps milk, and the liquid in the dish showed little ripples, as if disturbed by a dabbling finger—or an invisible tongue. Lower, lower sank the liquor; the bowl was all but empty.
Softly, swiftly de Grandin moved, snatching one after another of the silver vessels, drawing them within the outline of the pentagram.
Again we waited while the mumbled refrain of the sitters dinned in our ears, “Gilles Garnier, give back that which you withhold!” In a far corner of the room a faint and ghastly phosphorescence showed.
It grew brighter and more bright, took shape, took substance—a monstrous, shaggy white wolf crouched in the angle of the wall.
The beast was bigger than a mastiff, bigger than an Irish wolfhound, almost as big as a half-grown heifer, and from its wide mouth lolled a gluttonous red tongue from which a drop of dark-red liquid dripped. But dreadful as the monster’s size and aspect were, its eyes were more so. Incongruous as living orbs glaring through the eye-holes of a skull they were; fierce, fiery and malevolent, but human.
For a long moment the thing stared at us, then with a vicious growl it got upon its haunches, rose to all four feet, and charged full-tilt at us.
“Accursed of heaven, cast-off of hell, give back that which you withhold!” cried de Grandin, advancing to an angle of the pentagram to meet the charging fury. The Professor and I swung our censers toward the thing, and clouds of incense floated through the still air.
The great beast stopped as if in contact with a solid wall as it reached the outline of the pentagram, gave a choking, savage snarl and retreated gasping from the incense.
“Accursed of heaven, give back that which you withhold!” repeated de Grandin.
The beast eyed him questioningly, lowered itself till its belly scarcely cleared the floor, and circled slowly round the pentagram as if seeking some break in its outline.
“Accursed of heaven, give back that which you withhold!” came the inexorable command once more.
Oddly, the wolf-thing seemed losing substance. Its solidarity seemed dwindling, where a moment before it had been subs
tantial we could now discern the outlines of the room through it, as if it were composed of vapor. It lost its red and white tones and became luminous, like a figure dimly traced in phosphorescent paint on a dark background. The head, the trunk, the limbs and tail became elongated, split off from one another, rose slowly toward the ceiling like little luminous soap bubbles, floated for a moment in midair, then settled slowly toward the group of sitters at the table.
As each luminant globe touched a sitter’s head it vanished, not like a bursting bubble, but slowly, like a ponderable substance being sucked in, as milk in a goblet vanishes when imbibed through a straw.
A single tiny pear-shaped globule remained, bouncing aimlessly against the ceiling, bobbing down again, as an imprisoned wasp may make the circuit of a room into which it has inadvertently flown.
“Accursed of heaven, give back that which you withhold!” de Grandin ordered, staring fixedly at the rebounding bubble. “— give back that which—”
“Here, I’ve stood about enough of this—I want to know what’s going on!” Mazie Noyer burst into the room. “If you’re doing something mystic I want to—”
“Pour l’amour de Dieu, have a care!” de Grandin’s appalled shout cut her short. She had walked across an angle of the pentagram, overturning and extinguishing one of the candles as she did so.
“I won’t be bullied and insulted any longer, you miserable little French snip!” she announced. “I’ll—”
The floating fire-ball fell to the floor as though suddenly transmuted to lead. We could hear the impact as it struck the boards. For a moment it rolled to and fro, then seemed to shrink, compress itself—and took the shape of a tiny white wolf.
Scarcely larger than a mouse it was, but a perfect replica of the great beast which had menaced us a few moments before, even to its implacable savagery. With a howl hardly louder than a rat-squeak, yet fierce and vicious as a snake’s hiss, it dashed across the room, straight at the angle of the pentagram where the candle had been overset.
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