“The policeman in charge of examining the prints did his job very thoroughly, I have no doubt. I’m sure he carefully examined all the prints left in the snow by Mercier, Loiseau, and the dog. But the marks left by the cane?”
The commissaire’s ears were ringing and his brain was in a swirling fog. He could not believe it. This providential visitor had solved, in less than a quarter of an hour, a puzzle he had been racking his brains over for two days and almost two nights. He could only hear the voice off and on, in snatches:
“The fresh wood shavings were quite clear, after all… I kept telling you there’s always an explanation for everything… Look! It’s stopped snowing! I’ll be on my way soon… No, doggie, down… Stay… You’re staying here… What’s his name, by the way?”
“Wolf,” murmured Roux, “like his deceased master. I never understood why he called him by his own name.”
“There’s always an explanation for everything, my dear sir…”
Night started to fall. A few flakes of snow swirled in the biting cold. Nothing remained of the deer except the carcass lying in a pool of blood-red melted snow. Still, some of the group were not yet sated, but continued to feast on the last scraps of flesh, tearing at them with unabated ferocity.
“You understand,” said the chief as he concluded the story, “that it was not the right solution.”
“Personally,” growled his eldest son, “I find the story grotesque. Particularly the bit about being transformed into half-man half-wolf.”
“Unfortunately, my son, it happens. But in the opposite sense, naturally. That was precisely the case with Wolf. Because it was he, of course, who killed the old man during one of his many fits. I once saw him in that condition. You cannot imagine anything more hideous! He lost his beautiful fur and his paws lengthened and spread apart. His heavy furless head became round, his ears shrank, and his snout — I don’t even want to think about it — almost disappeared. Truly a monster. But that’s enough for tonight. We have to break camp.”
A long howl rent the silence. At the chief’s call, those who were still feasting withdrew their blooded snouts from the deer’s entrails. And the pack disappeared into the depths of the forest.