Look What Agent 269 Found...In A Book About Werewolves!

The image pasted above is a shot of Oliver Reed playing the central character in this story...His deathless acting turn in Curse of the Werewolf  was based on the book I am quoting today, The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore, ISBN 978-1-60598-353-0, where Agent 269 stumbled across THIS and reported it immediately:

 

"Sometimes, so my grandmother used to say, men come to the village fair who have never been seen before and never will be seen again.  They are men from the sea and are looking for prey to drag down into their underwater dwellings.  They can be recognized by the fact that the hems of their clothes are always slightly moist and their hands are often webbed..."

 

(Mme. Didier, quoted on pg. 75 of the edition I am reading.)

 

SLANDER, I TELL YOU! 

 

I am trying to bear in mind that the character describing our operatives is so superstitious and fearful that she runs out for holy water whenever there is a thunderstorm, for pity's sake.  But apparently it never occurred to Mme. Didier  -- or her grandmother -- that these visitors to the fair were simply LOOKING FOR A DATE.  (Or maybe funnel cakes?)  And it CLEARLY never occurred to them that if their "prey" was never seen again, that might be because THEY WERE TOO HAPPY TO RETURN TO THEIR FILTHY HOVELS IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE.

 

Well, eventually they WILL learn.  WE WILL SEE TO THAT.