“You can’t possibly take the proper position with your toes,” went on Jackson, “for it’s beyond a man’s ability to curve his toes as he does his hands. The Colombian ape’s toes are prehensile.”
“Can’t you say in your next news story, Doctor,” suggested Bentley, “that the Colombian ape, the nearest 246 animal relative of man, seems to be in an advanced stage of evolution. Can you not say that the Colombian ape is by way of losing the use of his toes?”
“Many scientists know that to be untrue,” said Jackson, “but perhaps we can help you through your scheme before they begin denying details in the newspapers. Too bad we can’t send secret suggestions to all anthropologists that they remain discreetly silent until the mantle of horror is lifted from Manhattan. But of course we can’t, since we’d betray ourselves. Our only hope, then, is to work at top speed.”
“I am as eager as anyone to finish a particularly horrible task,” said Bentley.
Under Jackson’s instructions Bentley walked up and down the room. His shaggy shadow on the several walls as he turned, marched and countermarched at Jackson’s commands, filled Bentley with self-loathing. He found himself repulsive. His body perspired freely impregnating the ape skin with a harsh odor that was biting and terrible in his nostrils. It was sickening. He tried to close his mind to the repulsiveness of what he was doing.
He walked with a swaying, side-to-side gait, something like a sailor’s rolling walk, while his arms swung free at his sides as though they merely hung from his body. The Colombian ape walked like that, Jackson said.
“How about the intelligence of the Colombian ape?” asked Bentley.
“We shot the only specimen so far seen by man before we could discover any facts bearing on his intelligence,” said Jackson.
“Then you can safely say that he possesses intelligence far beyond that of known apes,” said Bentley quickly, “somewhere, let us say, between that of the lowest order of mankind and civilized man.”