THE WEREWOLF OF CENTRAL PARK

In the fall of 1937 an alarming news broke through in the headlines of New York newspapers: a wolf was staying in Central Park. A cold shiver ran down the spine of the New Yorkers, who stopped frequenting the park. Testimonies were unequivocal: the neighbors of the adjoining buildings said they heard wolf howls at night. After arresting all the fools who used to howl at night in the vicinity, the police found that a howl kept piercing the nighttime. The New York Hunting Club organized a hunt against the beast. At nightfall, a half hundred armed men were distributed throughout the park. Towards midnight there was a long howl followed by the sound of gunshots, and the next morning the lifeless body of one of the hunters was found. A grimace of horror blemished his face while a mustache with curls upward at both ends embellished him. The coroner ruled that he had died either as a result of a fright or of the slipping of some ice cubes down his shirt collar. In addition, it was discovered that the mustache was not his and that someone had stuck it in his face so quickly that didn’t manage to put it under the nose but right on the tip of it. It’s true that in the hunting party there were some jokers known for their great fondness for practical jokes with ice cubes and fake mustaches, but the police tended to favour the most disturbing hypothesis, that of death as a result of a fright. (TO BE CONTINUED)