The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck Read Online Free

development, but is not muscle-bound. The professional wrestler also permitted me to contract his muscles galvanically to the point of torture, increasing the maximum force by a little more than 10 per cent, which still indicated less than half the strength of his slighter, mad rival.
    “What casued the amazing discrepancy? Wise men, in all ages and among all peoples of the earth, have ascribed the strength of madmen to demonic possession. And what is demonic possession? What are demons? The modern alienist does not even inquire. What, for example, is the relationship between the increased muscular contraction produced galvanically in my wrestler’s arms, and that produced by madness in the arms of J. T. L.? Is the demon itself a kind of galvanic manifestation? Could the application of contrary voltaic pressure neutralize the effect of the demon?”
    At the end of each paragraph of dictation, Dr. Alling smacked his lips, as if with relish for the flavor of his own words, and then waited for the nod which showed him that I had caught up. There was more to the new version of the introduction; but the above first part is sufficient for my dual purpose of showing the almost too tolerant quality of Prexy’s mind, and of indicating why he alone, of all persons in Altonville, found it convenient to see a great deal of that unpleasant old curmudgeon, Gideon Wyck. In disposition, in tastes, in outlook, they were miles apart. But Wyck, aside from being an excellent surgeon, was deeply, fantastically learned in one of the many fields of historico-medical research to be covered in Dr. Alling’s Short Sketch. Prexy had told me that every single book he wanted on the subjects of demonology and witchcraft had proved to be already on hand, in the curious library of Gideon Wyck.
    I was next set to copying, from a modern reprint of a work named Demoniality, [ 2 ] some marked passages arguing that abnormal human beings are products of love between normal women and men possessed of demons. Midway in the task, I could not help looking up curiously at my employer, wondering what his own inmost feelings must be, when reading such passages—he himself being almost a dwarf. He caught my eye, and smiled half bitterly, as if understanding the motive of my glance. I blushed, and bent over my work again.
    For half an hour we continued in silence, I copying, he browsing through a stack of books which he had borrowed the day before from Dr. Wyck. Presently, looking up to rest my eyes, I saw him take a paper marker from one of the volumes and toss it absent-mindedly into the wastebasket. Then he retrieved it, remarking, “That’s a nice way for me to treat another man’s property. He probably wants to keep that place. Oh, by the way, Wyck told me last night at the laboratory that he particularly wanted this one back today. I guess I’ll drive us over. Bring this book out, will you? I’ll go around and get the car.”
    As I took up the indicated book—a volume of Frazer’s Golden Bough,  a series of notations on the paper marker, made with what seemed to be intentionally faint pencil strokes, caught my eye. Something, perhaps a premonition that he wanted the notations rather than the book itself, prompted me to copy them off. I give them here:

Jl 16/300
         
Dc 23/500
Sp 3/400
 
Jn 29/500
Nv 1/400
 
Fb 24/500

    Then I hastened out to the road, called by the horn of Dr. Alling’s big old Marmon. We drove directly to Wyck’s home, which is situated about a half mile away, diagonally across from the northwest corner of the hospital fence. His daughter Marjorie, who kept house for the old widower, answered the bell. Under her somehow ethereal outer calm I sensed nervousness and a resentment of our intrusion into the gloomy building, set off by itself at the town’s edge, amid stumpy pines. Marjorie always had the air of a bewitched princess; and the old place, with intricate scrollwork festooning the veranda and the eaves, was painted