Night of the Werewolf Read Online Free Page A

to mental disturbance. It can cause hair to grow on the skin and even make a person so sensitive to light that he prefers to stay in the dark and go out only at night. Possibly some so-called werewolf cases were just people suffering from porphyria.”
    â€œWhere do you dig up reports on werewolf cases?”
    â€œIn old records of European court trials, to name one source,” the author explained. “You see, in the Middle Ages, werewolves were supposed to be possessed by the Devil, or to have made a pact with him. The judges who condemned people to be burned at the stake as witches sometimes had so-called werewolves put to death, too. The name werewolf, by the way, comes from Anglo-Saxon words meaning ‘man-wolf’.”
    Desmond Quorn added that there are also a number of old books and writings on the subject, besides the stories handed down from one generation to another. He said he had many cases in his files, collected from all these sources.
    â€œWould you by any chance have a record of a Bohemian werewolf named Tabor?” Joe asked as they all rose from the lunch table.
    Quorn flashed him a curious glance. “Of course. And how odd you should ask. It so happens that twice recently I’ve had occasion to look up that case.”
    He led the boys into his study and pulled out a file drawer. The next moment he turned around with a startled expression on his face.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, sir?” Frank asked.
    â€œMy data on the Tabor case!” Quorn exclaimed. “It’s been stolen!”

4
    Telltale Limp
    The Hardys were as startled as their host. They could not help wondering if the theft had anything to do with their own investigation.
    â€œWhat makes you so sure the information was stolen?” Frank asked.
    â€œBecause the papers were right here in this folder last Friday,” Quorn replied. “And I haven’t consulted the file since then!”
    â€œAny idea who might have taken them?”
    â€œIndeed I do,” the author replied angrily. “I had a visitor on Friday named Julien Sorel, who also inquired about the Tabor case. He must have snitched the records from the file folder when I left the room for a few moments.”
    â€œKnow anything about him?”
    â€œNothing, except that he spoke with a French accent. He phoned and said he had read and enjoyed my book, and asked if he could stop in to get my autograph. Then when he was here, he brought up the Tabor case.”
    Frank said, “Did he mention where he was from?”
    Quorn hesitated. “No, but from things he said, I got the impression that he had just arrived in this country recently, perhaps as a tourist.”
    Their host soon recovered from his annoyance and was able to tell the Hardys the main facts of the case in question, since he had checked and discussed it only a few days earlier.
    â€œAccording to legend, the Tabors bore a curse,” he related. “The family was said to spawn a werewolf every seventh generation, which was roughly every two hundred years. The last case occurred in the eighteenth century, somewhere around 1760. But there are records of two previous ancestors being condemned as werewolves in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.”
    â€œWhat happened to the last one?” Joe asked.
    â€œHis name was Jan Tabor. The story goes that he was shot in the leg by a huntsman with a silver bullet one night while he was prowling about in the form of a wolf. The next morning he turned into a human again, but the huntsman spotted him because he was limping from the bullet. So his vengeful neighbors dragged-him off to the town square to be tried as a werewolf.”
    â€œWowl” Chet shuddered. “That kind of stuff gives me the creeps!”
    â€œIn those days,” Quorn continued, “it was dangerous to be thought different from other people, or to get your neighbors mad at you.”
    â€œYou mentioned there were two times