Chapter 1

_A strange weird story about the eery
personality known as Varduk, who claimed
descent from Lord Byron, and the hideous
doom that stalked in his wake._

Powers, passions, all I see in other beings,
Have been to me as rain unto the sands
Since that all-nameless hour.

--Lord Byron: _Manfred_.

_Foreword_

Unlike most actors, I do not consider my memoirs worth the attention of
the public. Even if I did so consider them, I have no desire to carry
my innermost dear secrets to market. Often and often I have flung aside
the autobiography of some famous man or woman, crying aloud: "Surely
this is the very nonpareil of bad taste!"

Yet my descendants--and, after certain despairful years, again I have
hope of descendants--will want to know something about me. I write
this record of utterly strange happenings while it is yet new and
clear in my mind, and I shall seal it and leave it among my important
possessions, to be found and dealt with at such time as I may die. It
is not my wish that the paper be published or otherwise brought to the
notice of any outside my immediate family and circle of close friends.
Indeed, if I thought that such a thing would happen I might write less
frankly.

Please believe me, you who will read; I know that part of the narrative
will strain any credulity, yet I am ready with the now-threadbare
retort of Lord Byron, of whose works more below: "Truth is stranger
than fiction." I have, too, three witnesses who have agreed to vouch
for the truth of what I have set down. Their only criticism is that I
have spoken too kindly of them. If anything, I have not spoken kindly
enough.

Like Peter Quince in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, I have rid my prolog
like a rough colt. Perhaps, like Duke Theseus, you my readers will be
assured thereby of my sincerity.

Signed,
GILBERT CONNATT,
New York City
August 1, 1938

We, the undersigned, having read the appended statement of Gilbert
Connatt, do hereby declare it to be true in substance.

Signed,
SIGRID HOLGAR
KEITH HILARY PURSUIVANT
JACOB A. SWITZ

_1. Drafted_

The counterman in the little hamburger stand below Times Square gazed
at me searchingly.

"Haven't I seen you somewhere?" he asked, and when I shook my head he
made a gesture as of inspiration. "I got it, buddy. There was a guy in
a movie like you--tall, thin--black mustache and eyes----"

"I'm not in pictures," I told him, quite truthfully as concerned the
moment. "Make me a double hamburger."

"And coffee?"

"Yes." Then I remembered that I had but fifteen cents, and that double
hamburgers cost a dime. I might want a second sandwich. "Make it a
single instead."

"No, a double," piped somebody at my elbow, and a short, plump figure
climbed upon the next stool. "Two doubles, for me and my friend here,
and I'm paying. Gilbert Connatt, at half-past the eleventh hour I run
onto you by the luck of the Switzes. I am glad to see you like an old
father to see his wandering boy."

I had known that voice of old in Hollywood. Turning, I surveyed the
fat, blob-nosed face, the crossed eyes behind shell-rimmed glasses, the
thick, curly hair, the ingratiating smile. "Hello, Jake," I greeted him
without enthusiasm.

Jake Switz waved at the counterman. "Two coffees with those
hamburgers." His strange oblique gaze shifted back to me. "Gib, to
me you are more welcome than wine at a wedding. In an uptown hotel
who do you think is wondering about you with tears in her eyes as big
as electric light bulbs?" He shrugged and extended his palms, as if
pleased at being able to answer his own question. "Sigrid Holgar!"

I made no reply, but drew a frayed shirt-cuff back into the worn sleeve
of my jacket. Jake Switz continued: "I've been wondering where to get
hold of you, Gib. How would you like again to play leading man for
Sigrid, huh?"

It is hard to look full into cross-eyes, but I managed it. "Go back to
her," I bade him, "and tell her I'm not taking charity from somebody
who threw me down."

Jake caught my arm and shook it earnestly. "But that ain't true, Gib.
It's only that she's been so successful she makes you look like a
loser. Gib, you know as well as you know your own name that it was you
that threw her down--so hard she ran like a silver dollar."

"I won't argue," I said, "and I won't have charity."

I meant that. It hurt to think of Sigrid and myself as we had been
five years ago--she an inspired but unsure newcomer from Europe, I the
biggest star on the biggest lot in the motion-picture industry. We made
a film together, another, became filmdom's favorite lovers on and off
screen. Then the quarrel; Jake was wrong, it was Sigrid's fault. Or was
it? Anyway, she was at the head of the class now, and I had been kicked
away from the foot.

The counterman set our sandwiches before us. I took a hungry bite and
listened to Jake's pleadings.

"It would be you doing her and me a favor, Gib. Listen this one
time--please, to give Jake Switz a break." His voice quavered
earnestly. "You know that Sigrid is going to do a stage play."

"I've read about it in _Variety_," I nodded. "Horror stuff, isn't it?
Like _Dracula_, I suppose, with women fainting and nurses dragging them
out of the theater."

"Nurses!" repeated Jake Switz scornfully. "Huh, doctors we'll need. At
our show Jack Dempsey himself would faint dead away on the floor, it's
so horrible!" He subsided and began to beg once more. "But you know how
Sigrid is. Quiet and restrained--a genius. She wouldn't warm up, no
matter what leading man we suggested. Varduk, the producer, mentioned
you. 'Get Gilbert Connatt,' he said to me. 'She made a success with him
once, maybe she will again.' And right away Sigrid said yes."

I went on eating, then swallowed a mouthful of scalding coffee. Jake
did the same, but without relish. Finally he exploded into a last
desperate argument.

"Gib, for my life I can't see how you can afford to pass it up. Here
you are, living on hamburgers----"

I whirled upon him so fiercely that the rest of the speech died on his
open lips. Rising, I tossed my fifteen cents on the counter and started
for the door. But Jake yelled in protest, caught my shoulder and fairly
wrestled me back.

"No, no," he was wailing. "Varduk would cut my heart out and feed it
to the sparrows if I found you and lost you again. Gib, I didn't mean
bad manners. I don't know nothing about manners, Gib, but have I ever
treated you wrong?"

I had to smile. "No, Jake. You're a creature of instincts, and the
instincts are rather better than the reasonings of most people. I think
you're intrinsically loyal." I thought of the years he had slaved for
Sigrid, as press agent, business representative, confidential adviser,
contract maker and breaker, and faithful hound generally. "I'm sorry
myself, Jake, to lose my temper. Let's forget it."

* * * * *

He insisted on buying me another double hamburger, and while I ate it
with unblunted appetite he talked more about the play Sigrid was to
present.

"Horror stuff is due for a comeback, Gib, and this will be the start.
A lovely, Gib. High class. Only Sigrid could do it. Old-fashioned, I
grant you, but not a grain of corny stuff in it. It was written by that
English guy, Lord Barnum--no, Byron. That's it, Lord Byron."

"I thought," said I, "that there was some question about the real
authorship."

"So the papers say, but they holler 'phony' at their own grandmothers.
Varduk is pretty sure. He knows a thing or two, that Varduk. You know
what he is going to do? He is getting a big expert to read the play
and make a report." Jake, who was more press agent than any other one
thing, licked his good-humored lips. "What a bust in the papers that
will be!"

Varduk.... I had heard that name, that single name whereby a new,
brilliant and mysteriously picturesque giant of the theatrical world
was known. Nobody knew where he had come from. Yet, hadn't Belasco been
a riddle? And Ziegfeld? Of course, they had never courted the shadows
like Varduk, had never refused to see interviewers or admirers. I
meditated that I probably would not like Varduk.

"Send me a pass when your show opens," I requested.

"But you'll be in it, Gib. Passes of your own you'll be putting out.
Ha! Listen this once while I try to do you good in spite of yourself,
my friend. You can't walk out after eating up the hamburgers I bought."

He had me there. I could not muster the price of that second sandwich,
and somehow the shrewd little fellow had surmised as much. He chuckled
in triumph as I shrugged in token of surrender.

"I knew you would, Gib. Now, here." He wrote on a card. "This is
Varduk's hotel and room number. Be there at eight o'clock tonight, to
read the play and talk terms. And here."

His second proffer was a wad of money.

"Get some clothes, Gib. With a new suit and tie you'll look like a
million dollars come home to roost. No, no. Take the dough and don't
worry. Ain't we friends? If you never pay me back, it will be plenty
soon enough."

He beamed my thanks away. Leaving the hamburger stand, we went in
opposite directions.

_2. Byron's Lost Play_

I did not follow Jake's suggestion exactly. Instead of buying new
garments throughout, I went to the pawnshop where I had of late raised
money on the remnants of a once splendid wardrobe. Here I redeemed a
blue suit that would become me best, and a pair of hand-made Oxfords.
Across the street I bought a fresh shirt and necktie. These I donned in
my coffin-sized room on the top floor of a cheap hotel. After washing,
shaving and powdering, I did not look so bad; I might even have been
recognized as the Gilbert Connatt who made history in the lavish film
version of _Lavengro_, that classic of gipsydom in which a newcomer
named Sigrid Holgar had also risen to fame....

I like to be prompt, and it was eight o'clock on the stroke when I
tapped at the door of Varduk's suite. There was a movement inside, and
then a cheerful voice: "Who's there?"

"Gilbert Connatt," I replied.

The lock scraped and the door opened. I looked into the handsome, ruddy
face of a heavy, towering man who was perhaps a year younger than I
and in much better physical condition. His was the wide, good-humored
mouth, the short, straight nose of the Norman Scot. His blond hair was
beginning to grow thin and his blue eyes seemed anxious.

"Come in, Mr. Connatt," he invited me, holding out his broad hand.
"My name's Davidson--Elmo Davidson." And, as I entered, "This is Mr.
Varduk." He might have been calling my attention to a prince royal.

I had come into a parlor, somberly decorated and softly lighted.
Opposite me, in a shadowed portion, gazed a pallid face. It seemed to
hang, like a mask, upon the dark tapestry that draped the wall. I was
aware first of a certain light-giving quality within or upon that
face, as though it were bathed in phosphorescent oil. It would have
been visible, plain even, in a room utterly dark. For the rest there
were huge, deep eyes of a color hard to make sure of, a nose somewhat
thick but finely shaped, a mouth that might have been soft once but now
drew tight as if against pain, and a strong chin with a dimple.

"How do you do, Mr. Connatt," said a soft, low voice, and the mask
inclined politely. A moment later elbows came forward upon a desk, and
I saw the rest of the man Varduk start out of his protective shadows.
His dark, double-breasted jacket and the black scarf at his throat
had blended into the gloom of the tapestry. So had his chestnut-brown
curls. As I came toward him, Varduk rose--he was of middle height, but
looked taller by reason of his slimness--and offered me a slender white
hand that gripped like a smith's tongs.

"I am glad that you are joining us," he announced cordially, in the
tone of a host welcoming a guest to dinner. "Miss Holgar needs old
friends about her, for her new stage adventure is an important item
in her splendid career. And this," he dropped his hand to a sheaf of
papers on the desk, "is a most important play."

Another knock sounded at the door, and Elmo Davidson admitted a young
woman, short and steady-eyed. She was Martha Vining, the character
actress, who was also being considered for a rôle in the play.

"Only Miss Holgar to come," Davidson said to me, with a smile that
seemed to ask for friendship. "We've only a small cast, you know; five."

"I am expecting one more after Miss Holgar," amended Varduk, and
Davidson made haste to add: "That's right, an expert antiquary--Judge
Keith Pursuivant. He's going to look at our manuscript and say
definitely if it is genuine."

Not until then did Varduk invite me to sit down, waving me to a
comfortable chair at one end of his desk. I groped in my pockets for a
cigarette, but he pressed upon me a very long and very good cigar.

"I admire tobacco in its naked beauty," he observed with the wraith
of a smile, and himself struck a match for me. Again I admired the
whiteness of his hand, its pointed fingers and strong sensitivity of
outline. Such hands generally betoken nervousness, but Varduk was
serene. Even the fall of his fringed lids over those plumbless eyes
seemed a deliberate motion, not an unthought wink.

Yet again a knock at the door, a brief colloquy and an ushering in by
Elmo Davidson. This time it was Sigrid.

I got to my feet, as unsteady as a half-grown boy at his first school
dance. Desperately I prayed not to look so moved as I felt. As for
Sigrid, she paused and met my gaze frankly, with perhaps a shade's
lightening of her gently tanned cheeks. She was a trifle thinner than
when I had last seen her five years ago, and wore, as usual, a belted
brown coat like an army officer's. Her hair, the blondest unbleached
hair I have ever known, fell to her shoulders and curled at its ends
like a full-bottomed wig in the portrait of some old cavalier. There
was a green flash in it, as in a field of ripened grain. Framed in its
two glistening cascades, her face was as I had known it, tapering from
brow to chin over valiant cheekbones and set with eyes as large as
Varduk's and bluer than Davidson's. She wore no make-up save a touch
of rouge upon her short mouth--cleft above and full below, like a red
heart. Even with low-heeled shoes, she was only two inches shorter than
I.

"Am I late?" she asked Varduk, in that deep, shy voice of hers.

"Not a bit," he assured her. Then he saw my awkward expectation and
added, with monumental tact for which I blessed him fervently, "I think
you know Mr. Gilbert Connatt."

Again she turned to me. "Of course," she replied. "Of course I know
him. How do you do, Gib?"

* * * * *

I took the hand she extended and, greatly daring, bent to kiss it.
Her fingers fluttered against mine, but did not draw away. I drew her
forward and seated her in my chair, then found a backless settee beside
her. She smiled at me once, sidewise, and took from my package the
cigarette I had forsaken for Varduk's cigar.

A hearty clap on my shoulder and a cry of greeting told me for the
first time that little Jake Switz had entered with her.

Varduk's brief but penetrating glance subdued the exuberant Jake. We
turned toward the desk and waited.

"Ladies and gentlemen," began Varduk, seriously but not heavily,
"a new-found piece of Lord Byron's work is bound to be a literary
sensation. We hope also to make a theatrical sensation, for our
new-found piece is a play.

"A study of Lord Byron evokes varied impressions and appeals. Carlyle
thought him a mere dandy, lacking Mr. Brummel's finesse and good
humor, while Goethe insisted that he stood second only to Shakespeare
among England's poets. His mistress, the Countess Guiccioli, held
him literally to be an angel; on the other hand, both Lamartine and
Southey called him Satan's incarnation. Even on minor matters--his
skill at boxing and swimming, his depth of scholarship, his sincerity
in early amours and final espousal of the Greek rebels--the great
authorities differ. The only point of agreement is that he had color
and individuality."

He paused and picked up some of the papers from his desk.

"We have here his lost play, _Ruthven_. Students know that Doctor
John Polidori wrote a lurid novel of horror called _The Vampire_, and
that he got his idea, or inspiration, or both, from Byron. Polidori's
tale in turn inspired the plays of Nodier and Dumas in French, and of
Planché and Boucicault in English. Gilbert and Sullivan joked with
the story in _Ruddigore_, and Bram Stoker read it carefully before
attempting _Dracula_. This manuscript," again he lifted it, "is Byron's
original. It is, as I have said, a drama."

His expressive eyes, bending upon the page in the dimness, seemed to
shed a light of their own. "I think that neither Mr. Connatt nor Miss
Vining has seen the play. Will you permit me to read?" He took our
consent for granted, and began: "Scene, Malvina's garden. Time, late
afternoon--Aubrey, sitting at Malvina's feet, tells his adventures."

Since _Ruthven_ is yet unpublished, I take the liberty of outlining
it as I then heard it for the first time. Varduk's voice was
expressive, and his sense of drama good. We listened, intrigued and
then fascinated, to the opening dialog in which young Aubrey tells
his sweetheart of his recent adventures in wildest Greece. The blank
verse struck me, at least, as being impressive and not too stiff,
though better judges than I have called Byron unsure in that medium.
Varduk changed voice and character for each rôle, with a skill almost
ventriloquial, to create for us the illusion of an actual drama. I
found quite moving Aubrey's story of how bandits were beaten off
single-handed by his chance acquaintance, Lord Ruthven. At the point
where Aubrey expresses the belief that Ruthven could not have survived
the battle:

"I fled, but he remained; how could one man,
Even one so godly gallant, face so many?
He followed not. I knew that he was slain----"

At that point, I say, the first surprize comes with the servant's
announcement that Ruthven himself has followed his traveling companion
from Greece and waits, whole and sound, for permission to present
himself.

No stage directions or other visualization; but immediate dialog
defines the title rôle as courtly and sinister, fascinating and
forbidding. Left alone with the maid-servant, Bridget, he makes
unashamed and highly successful advances. When he lifts the cap from
her head and lets her hair fall down, it reminds one that Byron himself
had thus ordered it among the maids on his own estate. Byron had made
love to them, too; perhaps some of Ruthven's speeches in this passage,
at least, came wholemeal from those youthful conquests.

Yet the seduction is not a gay one, and smacks of bird and snake. When
Ruthven says to Bridget,

"You move and live but at my will; dost hear?"

and she answers dully:

"I hear and do submit,"

awareness rises of a darkling and menacing power. Again, as Aubrey
mentions the fight with the bandits, Ruthven dismisses the subject with
the careless,

"I faced them, and who seeks my face seeks death,"

one feels that he fears and spares an enemy no more than a fly. And,
suddenly, he turned his attentions to Malvina:

"Yes, I am evil, and my wickedness
Draws to your glister and your purity.
Now shall you light no darkness but mine own,
An orient pearl swathed in a midnight pall----"

Oscar, husband of the betrayed Bridget, rushes in at this point to
denounce Ruthven and draw away his bemused mistress. At a touch from
the visitor's finger, Oscar falls dead. Aubrey, arming himself with a
club of whitethorn--a sovereign weapon against demons--strikes Ruthven
down. Dying, the enchanter persuades Aubrey and Malvina to drag him
into the open and so leave him. As the moon rises upon his body, he
moves and stands up:

"Luna, my mother, fountain of my life,
Once more thy rays restore me with their kiss.
Grave, I reject thy shelter! Death, stand back!...

"Curtain," said Varduk suddenly, and smiled around at us.

"So ends our first act," he continued in his natural voice. "No
date--nor yet are we obliged to date it. For purposes of our dramatic
production, however, I intend to lay it early in the past century, in
the time of Lord Byron himself. Act Two," and he picked up another
section of the manuscript, "begins a century later. We shall set it in
modern times. No blank verse now--Byron cleverly identifies his two
epochs by offering his later dialog in natural prose. That was the
newest of new tricks in his day."

Again he read to us. The setting was the same garden, with Mary Aubrey
and her cousin Swithin, descendants of the Aubrey and Malvina of the
first act, alternating between light words of love and attentions to
the aged crone Bridget. This survivor of a century and more croaks out
the fearsome tale of Ruthven's visit and what followed. Her grandson
Oscar, Mary's brother, announces a caller.

The newcomer explains that he has inherited the estate of Ruthven,
ancient foe of the Aubreys, and that he wishes to make peace. But
Bridget, left alone with him, recognizes in him her old tempter,
surviving ageless and pitiless. Oscar, too, hears the secret, and is
told that this is his grandfather. Bit by bit, the significance of
a dead man restless after a century grows in the play and upon the
servants. They swear slavishly to help him. He seeks a double and
sinister goal. Swithin, image of his great-grandfather Aubrey, must
die for that ancestor's former triumph over Ruthven. Mary, the later
incarnation of Malvina, excites Ruthven's passion as did her ancestress.

Then the climax. Malvina, trapped by Ruthven, defies him, then offers
herself as payment for Swithin's life. Swithin, refusing the sacrifice,
thrusts Ruthven through with a sword, but to no avail. Oscar overpowers
him, and the demoniac lord pronounces the beginning of a terrible
curse; but Mary steps forward as if to accept her lover's punishment.
Ruthven revokes his words, blesses her. As the Almighty's name issues
from his lips, he falls dead and decaying.

"End of the play," said Varduk. "I daresay you have surmised what rôles
I plan for you. Miss Holgar and Mr. Connatt are my choices for Malvina
and Aubrey in the first act, and Mary and Swithin in the second. Miss
Vining will create the rôle of Bridget, and Davidson will undertake the
two Oscars."

"And Ruthven?" I prompted, feeling unaccountably presumptuous in
speaking uninvited.

Varduk smiled and lowered his fringed lids. "The part is not too
difficult," he murmured. "Ruthven is off stage more than on, an
influence rather than a flesh-and-blood character. I shall honor myself
with this title rôle."

Switz, sitting near me, produced a watch. We had been listening to the
play for full two hours and a half.

Again a knock sounded at the door. Davidson started to rise, but
Varduk's slender hand waved him down.

"That will be Judge Pursuivant. I shall admit him myself. Keep your
seats all."

He got up and crossed the floor, walking stiffly as though he wore
tight boots. I observed with interest that in profile his nose seemed
finer and sharper, and that his ears had no lobes.

"Come in, Judge Pursuivant," he said cordially at the door. "Come in,
sir."

_3. Enter Judge Pursuivant_

Keith Hilary Pursuivant, the occultist and antiquary, was as arresting
as Varduk himself, though never were two men more different in
appearance and manner. Our first impression was of a huge tweed-clad
body, a pink face with a heavy tawny mustache, twinkling pale eyes
and a shock of golden-brown hair. Under one arm he half crushed a
wide black hat, while the other hand trailed a heavy stick of mottled
Malacca, banded with silver. There was about him the same atmosphere
of mature sturdiness as invests Edward Arnold and Victor McLaglen, and
withal a friendly gayety. Without being elegant or dashing, he caught
and held the regard. Men like someone like that, and so, I believe, do
women who respect something beyond sleek hair and brash repartee.

Varduk introduced him all around. The judge bowed to Sigrid, smiled at
Miss Vining, and shook hands with the rest of us. Then he took a seat
at the desk beside Varduk.

"Pardon my trembling over a chance to see something that may have
been written by Lord Byron to lie perdu for generations," he said
pleasantly. "He and his works have long been enthusiasms of mine. I
have just published a modest note on certain aspects of his----"

"Yes, I know," nodded Varduk, who was the only man I ever knew who
could interrupt without seeming rude. "_A Defense of the Wickedest
Poet_--understanding and sympathetic, and well worth the praise and
popularity it is earning. May I also congratulate you on your two
volumes of demonology, _Vampyricon_ and _The Unknown that Terrifies_?"

"Thank you," responded Pursuivant, with a bow of his shaggy head. "And
now, the manuscript of the play----"

"Is here." Varduk pushed it across the desk toward the expert.

Pursuivant bent for a close study. After a moment he drew a floor lamp
close to cast a bright light, and donned a pair of pince-nez.

"The words 'by Lord Byron', set down here under the title, are either
genuine or a very good forgery," he said at once. "I call your
attention, Mr. Varduk, to the open capital B, the unlooped down-stroke
of the Y, and the careless scrambling of the O and N." He fumbled
in an inside pocket and produced a handful of folded slips. "These
are enlarged photostats of several notes by Lord Byron. With your
permission, Mr. Varduk, I shall use them for comparison."

He did so, holding the cards to the manuscript, moving them here and
there as if to match words. Then he held a sheet of the play close to
the light. "Again I must say," he announced at last, "that this is
either the true handwriting of Byron or else a very remarkable forgery.
Yet----"

Varduk had opened a drawer of the desk and once more he interrupted.
"Here is a magnifying glass, Judge Pursuivant. Small, but quite
powerful." He handed it over. "Perhaps, with its help, you can decide
with more accuracy."

"Thank you." Pursuivant bent for a closer and more painstaking
scrutiny. For minutes he turned over page after page, squinting through
the glass Varduk had lent him. Finally he looked up again.

"No forgery here. Every stroke of the pen is a clean one. A forger
draws pictures, so to speak, of the handwriting he copies, and with a
lens like this one can plainly see the jagged, deliberate sketchwork."
He handed back the magnifying glass and doffed his spectacles, then let
his thoughtful eyes travel from one of us to the others. "I'll stake my
legal and scholastic reputation that Byron himself wrote these pages."

"Your stakes are entirely safe, sir," Varduk assured him with a smile.
"Now that you have agreed--and I trust that you will allow us to inform
the newspapers of your opinion--that _Ruthven_ is Byron's work, I am
prepared to tell how the play came into my possession. I was bequeathed
it--by the author himself."

We all looked up at that, highly interested. Varduk smiled upon us as
if pleased with the sensation he had created.

"The germ of _Ruthven_ came into being one night at the home of the
poet Shelley, on the shores of Lake Geneva. The company was being
kept indoors by rain and wind, and had occupied itself with reading
German ghost stories, and then tried their own skill at Gothic tales.
One of those impromptu stories we know--Mary Godwin's masterpiece,
_Frankenstein_. Lord Byron told the strange adventures of Ruthven, and
Polidori appropriated them--that we also know; but later that night,
alone in his room, Byron wrote the play we have here."

"In one sitting?" asked Martha Vining.

"In one sitting," replied Varduk. "He was a swift and brilliant
worker. In his sixteen years of active creative writing, he produced
nearly eighty thousand lines of published verse--John Drinkwater
reckons an average of fourteen lines, or the equivalent of a complete
sonnet, for every day. This prodigious volume of poetry he completed
between times of making love, fighting scandal, traveling, quarreling,
philosophizing, organizing the Greek revolution. An impressive record
of work, both in size and in its proportion of excellence."

Sigrid leaned forward. "But you said that Lord Byron himself bequeathed
the play to you."

Again Varduk's tight, brief smile. "It sounds fantastic, but it
happened. Byron gave the manuscript to Claire Clairmont, his mistress
and the mother of two of his children. He wanted it kept a secret--he
had been called fiend incarnate too often.