Grace murmured wearily that there would always be scientists and doctors who dreamed of being morally free to do exactly as they pleased.
"Yes," said Felix, "and when I heard from Arthur Hammermill that Jaska had been pestering Reuben,s family, well, I thought to myself perhaps we can be of some assistance."
"And you,d met them in Paris - ," said Phil.
"I knew them," said Felix. "I suspected their methods. I suspected the lengths to which they might go to achieve their ends. I suspect the police will discover their Sausalito Rehabilitation Center was a front, that they had a plane waiting to take Stuart and Reuben out of the country."
"And all this to determine why the boys were exhibiting these symptoms, whatever they are, these strange changes - ," said Phil.
"Because they,d been bitten by this thing," said Grace. She sat back, shaking her head. "To see whether the saliva of the Man Wolf had imparted some element that could be isolated from the victims, blood."
"Precisely," said Felix.
"Well, they would have been extremely disappointed," said Grace. "Because we ourselves have researched the matter from every conceivable angle."
"Oh, but you don,t know what scientists like that have at their disposal," said Phil. "You,ve never really been a research scientist. You,re a surgeon. Those two were Frankensteinian fanatics."
Jim looked past the others at Reuben, his eyes tired, grieved, faintly afraid.
Jim had gone with Simon Oliver to the emergency room, and had returned only an hour ago, reporting that Simon was all right and on his way back to the city by special ambulance. He would be fine.
"Well, there is one thing we all know, isn,t there?" asked Grace. "Whether we are surgeons, priests, or poets, right Phil? We,ve seen this monster with our own eyes."
"Doesn,t matter," said Phil. "It,s like a ghost. You see it yourself, you believe it. But nobody else will believe it. You,ll see. They,ll sneer at us just like they,re sneering at everybody else who,s seen it. The witnesses could fill Candlestick Park and it wouldn,t make any difference at all."
"That,s true," said Jim softly, speaking to no one in particular.
"And what did you learn from this," asked Felix, looking intently at Grace, "that you didn,t know before?"
"That it is real," said Grace with a shrug. "That it,s no criminal in a costume, or matter of a collective hallucination. It,s a freak of nature, to use the old phrase, a human being who,s suffered a monstrous deformity. It will all eventually be explained."
"Perhaps you,re right," said Felix.
"But what if it,s an unknown species?" asked Phil. "Something that simply has not been discovered yet?"
"Nonsense," said Grace. "That,s impossible in today,s world. Oh, I mean maybe it could happen in New Guinea but not here. It,s a one-off. It,s suffered some hideous calamity or it,s a freak since birth."
"Hmmm, I don,t know," said Phil. "Exactly what accident or illness or congenital deformity could account for that thing? Nothing I ever heard of, but you,re the doctor, Grace."
"It will all be explained," she said. She wasn,t adamant or arguing, really. She was merely convinced. "They,ll catch the thing. They have to. There,s no safe corner of the modern world for such a thing. They,ll get to the bottom of what he is and how he became what he is, and that will be the end of it. In the meantime, the world can run rampant with the idea of the Man Wolf as if he were a template for a new form of hero, when, sadly, he,s no more than an aberration. Eventually, they,ll autopsy him, eviscerate him, stuff him, and mount him. He,ll end up in the Smithsonian in a glass case. And we,ll tell our grandchildren that we once glimpsed him with our own eyes, during his brief and brilliant glory days, and he,ll be sentimentalized as a tragic figure - rather like the Elephant Man, in the end."
Jim said not a word.
Reuben wandered out to the kitchen where the sheriff stood with his thirteenth cup of coffee, talking to Galton about the werewolf legends around "these parts" that hadn,t been heard in many a year.
"Now, there was an old lady up here, a crazy lady, years ago, in this house. I remember my grandmother talking about it. She sent word down to the mayor in Nideck, that there were werewolves in these woods - ."
"I don,t know what you,re talking about," said Galton. "I,m older than you and I never heard any such thing - ."
" - claimed the Nideck family were werewolves. I meant she went screaming crazy up here, insisting - ."
"Oh, your grandmother made that up."
And so forth and so on.
Stuart had disappeared with Margon Sperver. And Baron Thibault was assisting Laura as she arranged the last of the Fig Newtons and coconut macaroons on a pretty flowered china plate. The kitchen smelled strongly now of fresh-cut apples and cinnamon tea. Laura looked emotionally threadbare but she obviously liked Thibault enormously and they,d been conversing all evening in low voices as the party rolled on. Thibault was saying to her, "But all morality is of necessity shaped by context. I,m not talking relativism, no. To ignore the context of a decision is in fact immoral."
"Then how exactly do we define immutable truths?" Laura asked. "I do see exactly what you,re saying but I lack the skills to define how we construct moral decisions when context is continually shifting - ."
"By recognizing," said Thibault, "the conditions under which every moral decision is made."
Some people were leaving.
The official interviews were winding down.
The sheriff reported that the search for the Man Wolf around Nideck had been abandoned. And he was just getting word that Jaska and Klopov had both been wanted by Interpol for questioning in a number of open cases in Germany and France.
Someone had gotten a clear and unmistakable series of shots of the Man Wolf south of San Jose. "Looks like the real thing to me," said the sheriff checking his iPhone. "That,s the same devil all right. Take a look. And how could the critter have gotten that far that quick?"
The forensics teams had called to say that the crime scenes could be released.
Finally, the party began to break up.
The family had a plane waiting for them at the nearby airport. Reuben walked with his mother to the door.
"These friends of the Nidecks,, they,ve been invaluable," she conceded. "I like that Felix very much. I thought Arthur Hammermill was in love or something when he went on and on about the man, but I understand now. I do."