Read Online Manly Wade Wellman - Judge Pursuivant 01 by The Hairy Ones Shall Dance (v1.1) - Free Book Online

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 Hving 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 seances, 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