Chapter 3

But we of the play itself will
be in residence, and we alone--a condition fully in character, I feel,
with the attitude of mystery and reserve we have assumed toward our
interesting production. For breakfasts, Davidson will be able to look
after us."

"Huh!" grunted Jake. "That Davidson can act, manage, stage-hand,
cook--he does everything."

"Almost everything," said Varduk dryly, and his eyes turned long and
expressionlessly upon my friend, who immediately subsided. In the
daylight I saw that Varduk's eyes were hazel; on the night I had met
him at his hotel they had seemed thunder-dark.

"You, too, are considered useful at many things around the theater,
Switz," Varduk continued. "I took that into consideration when Miss
Holgar, though she left her maid behind, insisted on including you in
the company. I daresay, we can depend on you to help Davidson with the
staging and so on."

"Oh, yes, sure," Jake made reply. "Certainly. Miss Holgar, she wants me
to do that."

"Very good." Varduk turned on the heel of his well-polished boot.
"Suppose," he added over his shoulder, "that you take Mr. Connatt up
to the loft of the boathouse. Mr. Connatt, do you mind putting up with
Switz?"

"Not in the least," I assured him readily, and took up two of my bags.
Jake had already lifted the third and heaviest.

We nodded to Varduk and skirted the side of the lodge, walked down
to the water, then entered the boathouse. It was a simple affair of
well-chinked logs. Two leaky-looking canoes still occupied the lower
part of it, but we picked our way past them and ascended a sturdy
staircase to a loft under the peaked roof. This had been finished
with wall-board and boasted a window at each end. Two cots, a rug,
a wash-stand, a table and several chairs made it an acceptable
sleeping-apartment.

"This theater is half-way to the never-never land," I commented as I
began to unpack.

"I should live so--I never saw the like of it," Jake said earnestly.
"How are people going to find their way here? Yesterday I began to talk
about signs by the side of the road. Right off at once, Varduk said no.
I begged like a poor relation left out of his uncle's will. Finally he
said yes--but the signs must be small and dignified, and put up only a
day before the show begins."

I wanted to ask a question about his adventure of the previous night,
but Jake shook his head in refusal to discuss it. "Not here," he said.
"Gib, who knows who may be listening?" He dropped his voice. "Or even
_what_ might be listening?"

I lapsed into silence and got out old canvas sneakers, flannel slacks
and a Norfolk jacket, and changed into them. Dressed in this easy
manner, I left the boathouse and stood beside the lake. At once a voice
hailed me. Sigrid was walking along the water's edge, smiling in
apparent delight.

* * * * *

We came face to face; I bent to kiss her hand. As once before, it
fluttered under my lips, but when I straightened again I saw nothing of
distaste or unsteadiness in her expression.

"Gib, how nice that you're here!" she cried. "Do you like the place?"

"I haven't seen very much of it yet," I told her. "I want to see the
inside of the theater."

She took her hand away from me and thrust it into the pocket of the
old white sweater she wore. "I think that I love it here," she said,
with an air of gay confession. "Not all of the hermit stories about
me are lies. I could grow truly fat--God save the mark!--on quiet and
serenity."

"Varduk pleases you, too?" I suggested.

"He has more understanding than any other theatrical executive in my
experience," she responded emphatically. "He fills me with the wish to
work. I'm like a starry-eyed beginner again. What would you say if I
told you that I was sweeping my own room and making my own bed?"

"I would say that you were the most charming housemaid in the world."

Her laughter was full of delight. "You sound as if you mean it, Gib. It
is nice to know you as a friend again."

It seemed to me that she emphasized the word "friend" a trifle, as
though to warn me that our relationship would nevermore become closer
than that. Changing the subject, I asked her if she had swum in the
lake; she had, and found it cold. How about seeing the theater?
Together we walked toward the lodge and entered at a side door.

The auditorium was as Jake had described it to me, and I saw that
Varduk liked a dark tone. He had stained the paneling, the benches, and
the beams a dark brown. Brown, too, was the heavy curtain that hid the
stage.

"We'll be there tonight," said Sigrid, nodding stageward. "Varduk
has called the first rehearsal for immediately after dinner. We eat
together, of course, in a big room upstairs."

"May I sit next to you when we eat?" I asked, and she laughed yet
again. She was being as cheerful as I had ever known her to be.

"You sound like the student-hero in a light opera, Gib. I don't know
about the seating-arrangement. Last night I was at the head of the
table, and Varduk at the foot. Jake and Mr. Davidson were at either
side of me."

"I shall certainly arrive before one or the other of them," I vowed
solemnly.

Varduk had drifted in as we talked, and he chuckled at my announcement.

"A gallant note, Mr. Connatt, and one that I hope you can capture as
pleasantly for the romantic passages of our _Ruthven_. By the bye, our
first rehearsal will take place this evening."

"So Miss Holgar has told me," I nodded. "I have studied the play
rather prayerfully since Davidson gave me a copy. I hope I'm not a
disappointment in it."

"I am sure that you will not be," he said kindly. "I did not choose
disappointing people for my cast."

Davidson entered from the front, to say that Martha Vining had arrived.
Varduk moved away, stiff in his walk as I had observed before. Sigrid
and I went through the side door and back into the open.

That evening I kept my promise to find a place by Sigrid at the table.
Davidson, entering just behind me, looked a trifle chagrined but sat at
my other side, with Martha Vining opposite. The dinner was good, with
roast mutton, salad and apple tart. I thought of Judge Pursuivant's
healthy appetite as I ate.

After the coffee, Varduk nodded to the old man who served as caretaker,
cook and waiter, as in dismissal. Then the producer's hazel eyes turned
to Sigrid, who took her cue and rose. We did likewise.

"Shall we go down to the stage?" Varduk said to us. "It's time for our
first effort with _Ruthven_."

_7. Rehearsal_

We went down a back stairway that brought us to the empty stage. A
light was already burning, and I remember well that my first impression
was of the stage's narrowness and considerable depth. Its back was
of plaster over the outer timbers, but at either side partitions of
paneling had been erected to enclose the cell-like dressing-rooms. One
of the doors bore a star of white paint, evidently for Sigrid. Against
the back wall leaned several open frames of wood, with rolls of canvas
lying ready to be tacked on and painted into scenery.

Varduk had led the way down the stairs, and at the foot he paused to
call upward to Davidson, who remained at the rear of the procession.
"Fetch some chairs," he ordered, and the tall subordinate paused to
gather them. He carried down six at once, his long strong arms threaded
through their open backs. Varduk showed him with silent gestures where
to arrange them, and himself led Sigrid to the midmost of them, upstage
center.

"Sit down, all," he said to the rest of us. "Curtain, Davidson." He
waited while the heavy pall rolled ponderously upward against the top
of the arch. "Have you got your scripts, ladies and gentlemen?"

We all had, but his hands were empty. I started to offer him my
copy, but he waved it away with thanks. "I know the thing by heart,"
he informed me, though with no air of boasting. Remaining still upon
his feet, he looked around our seated array, capturing every eye and
attention.

"The first part of _Ruthven_ is, as we know already, in iambic
pentameter--the 'heroic verse' that was customary and even expected
in dramas of Byron's day. However, he employs here his usual trick of
breaking the earlier lines up into short, situation-building speeches.
No long and involved declamations, as in so many creaky tragedies of
his fellows. He wrote the same sort of opening scenes for his plays the
world has already seen performed--_Werner_, _The Two Foscari_, _Marino
Faliero_ and _The Deformed Transformed_."

Martha Vining cleared her throat. "Doesn't _Manfred_ begin with a long,
measured soliloquy by the central character?"

"It does," nodded Varduk. "I am gratified, Miss Vining, to observe that
you have been studying something of Byron's work." He paused, and she
bridled in satisfaction. "However," he continued, somewhat maliciously,
"you would be well advised to study farther, and learn that Byron
stated definitely that _Manfred_ was not written for the theater. But,
returning to _Ruthven_, with which work we are primarily concerned, the
short, lively exchanges at the beginning are Aubrey's and Malvina's."
He quoted from memory. "'Scene, Malvina's garden. Time, late
afternoon--Aubrey, sitting at Malvina's feet, tells his adventures.'
Very good, Mr. Connatt, take your place at Miss Holgar's feet."

I did so, and she smiled in comradely fashion while waiting for the
others to drag their chairs away. Glancing at our scripts, we began:

"I'm no Othello, darling."

"Yet I am
Your Desdemona. Tell me of your travels."

"Of Anthropophagi?"

"'And men whose heads do grow beneath----'"

"I saw no such,
Not in all wildest Greece and Macedon."

"Saw you no spirits?"

"None, Malvina--none."

"Not even the vampire, he who quaffs the blood
Of life, that he may live in death?"

"Not I.
How do you know that tale?"

"I've read
In old romances----"

"Capital, capital," interrupted Varduk pleasantly. "I know that
the play is written in a specific meter, yet you need not speak as
though it were. If anything, make the lines less rhythmic and more
matter-of-fact. Remember, you are young lovers, half bantering as you
woo. Let your audience relax with you. Let it feel the verse form
without actually hearing."

We continued, to the line where Aubrey tells of his travel-acquaintance
Ruthven. Here the speech became definite verse:

"He is a friend who charms, but does not cheer,
One who commands, but comforts not, the world.
I do not doubt but women find him handsome,
Yet hearts must be uneasy at his glance."

Malvina asks:

"His glance? Is it so piercing when it strikes?"

And Aubrey:

"It does not pierce--indeed, it rather weighs,
Like lead, upon the face where it is fixed."

Followed the story, which I have outlined elsewhere, of the encounter
with bandits and Ruthven's apparent sacrifice of himself to cover
Aubrey's retreat. Then Martha Vining, as the maid Bridget, spoke to
announce Ruthven's coming, and upon the heels of her speech Varduk
moved stiffly toward us.

"Aubrey!" he cried, in a rich, ringing tone such as fills theaters, and
not at all like his ordinary gentle voice. I made my due response:

"Have you lived, Ruthven? But the horde
Of outlaw warriors compassed you and struck----"

In the rôle of Ruthven, Varduk's interruption was as natural and
decisive as when, in ordinary conversation, he neatly cut another's
speech in two with a remark of his own. I have already quoted this
reply of Ruthven's:

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

He was speaking the line, of course, without script, and his eyes
held mine. Despite myself, I almost staggered under the weight
of his glance. It was like that which Aubrey actually credits to
Ruthven--lead-heavy instead of piercing, difficult to support.

The rehearsal went on, with Ruthven's seduction of Bridget and his
court to the nervous but fascinated Malvina. In the end, as I have
synopsized earlier, came his secret and miraculous revival from
seeming death. Varduk delivered the final rather terrifying speech
magnificently, and then abruptly doffed his Ruthven manner to smile
congratulations all around.

"It's more than a month to our opening date in July," he said, "and yet
I would be willing to present this play as a finished play, no later
than this day week. Miss Holgar, may I voice my special appreciation?
Mr. Connatt, your confessed fear of your own inadequacy is proven
groundless. Bravo, Miss Vining--and you, Davidson." His final tag of
praise to his subordinate seemed almost grudging. "Now for the second
act of the thing. No verse this time, my friends. Finish the rehearsal
as well as you have begun."

"Wait," I said. "How about properties? I simulated the club-stroke in
the first act, but this time I need a sword. For the sake of feeling
the action better----"

"Yes, of course," granted Varduk. "There's one in the corner
dressing-room." He pointed. "Go fetch it, Davidson."

Davidson complied. The sword was a cross-hilt affair, old but keen and
bright.

"This isn't a prop at all," I half objected. "It's the real thing.
Won't it be dangerous?"

"Oh, I think we can risk it," Varduk replied carelessly. "Let's get on
with the rehearsal. A hundred years later, in the same garden. Swithin
and Mary, descendants of Aubrey and Malvina, on-stage."

* * * * *

We continued. The opening, again with Sigrid and myself a-wooing,
was lively and even brilliant. Martha Vining, in her rôle of the
centenarian Bridget, skilfully cracked her voice and infused a
witch-like quality into her telling of the Aubrey-Ruthven tale. Again
the entrance of Ruthven, his suavity and apparent friendliness, his
manner changing as he is revealed as the resurrected fiend of another
age; finally the clash with me, as Swithin.

I spoke my line--"My ancestor killed you once, Ruthven. I can do the
same today." Then I poked at him with the sword.

Varduk smiled and interjected, "Rather a languid thrust, that, Mr.
Connatt. Do you think it will seem serious from the viewpoint of our
audience?"

"I'm sorry," I said. "I was afraid I might hurt you."

"Fear nothing, Mr. Connatt. Take the speech and the swordplay again."

I did so, but he laughed almost in scorn. "You still put no life into
the thrust." He spread his hands, as if to offer himself as a target.
"Once more. Don't be an old woman."

Losing a bit of my temper, I made a genuine lunge. My right foot glided
forward and my weight shifted to follow my point. But in mid-motion I
knew myself for a danger-dealing fool, tried to recover, failed, and
slipped.

I almost fell at full length--would have fallen had Varduk not been
standing in my way. My sword-point, completely out of control, drove
at the center of his breast--I felt it tear through cloth, through
flesh----

A moment later his slender hands had caught my floundering body and
pushed it back upon its feet. My sword, wedged in something, snatched
its hilt from my hand. Sick and horrified, I saw it protruding from the
midst of Varduk's body. Behind me I heard the choked squeal of Martha
Vining, and an oath from Jake Switz. I swayed, my vision seemed to swim
in smoky liquid, and I suppose I was well on the way to an unmasculine
swoon. But a light chuckle, in Varduk's familiar manner, saved me from
collapsing.

"That is exactly the way to do it, Mr. Connatt," he said in a tone of
well-bred applause.

He drew the steel free--I think that he had to wrench rather hard--and
then stepped forward to extend the hilt.

"There's blood on it," I mumbled sickly.

"Oh, that?" he glanced down at the blade. "Just a deceit for the sake
of realism. You arranged the false-blood device splendidly, Davidson."
He pushed the hilt into my slack grasp. "Look, the imitation gore is
already evaporating."

So it was, like dew on a hot stone. Already the blade shone bright and
clean.

"Very good," said Varduk. "Climax now. Miss Holgar, I think it is your
line."

She, too, had been horrified by the seeming catastrophe, but she came
gamely up to the bit where Mary pleads for Swithin's life, offering
herself as the price. Half a dozen exchanges between Ruthven and Mary,
thus:

"You give yourself up, then?"

"I do."

"You renounce your former manners, hopes and wishes?"

"I do."

"You will swear so, upon the book yonder?" (Here Ruthven points to a
Bible, open on the garden-seat.)

"I do." (Mary touches the Bible.)

"You submit to the powers I represent?"

"I know only the power to which I pray. 'Our Father, which wert in
heaven----'"

Sigrid, as I say, had done well up to now, but here she broke off. "It
isn't correct there," she pointed out. "The prayer should read, 'art in
heaven.' Perhaps the script was copied wrongly."

"No," said Martha Vining. "It's 'wert in heaven' on mine."

"And on mine," I added.

Varduk had frowned a moment, as if perplexed, but he spoke decisively.
"As a matter of fact, it's in the original. Byron undoubtedly meant it
to be so, to show Mary's agitation."

Sigrid had been reading ahead. "Farther down in the same prayer, it
says almost the same thing--'Thy will be done on earth as it was in
heaven.' It should be, 'is in heaven.'"

I had found the same deviation in my own copy. "Byron hardly meant
Mary's agitation to extend so far," I argued.

"Since when, Mr. Connatt," inquired Varduk silkily, "did you become
an authority on what Byron meant, here or elsewhere in his writings?
You're being, not only a critic, but a clairvoyant."

I felt my cheeks glowing, and I met his heavy, mocking gaze as levelly
as I could. "I don't like sacrilegious mistakes," I said, "and I don't
like being snubbed, sir."

Davidson stepped to Varduk's side. "You can't talk to him like that,
Connatt," he warned me.

Davidson was a good four inches taller than I, and more muscular, but
at the moment I welcomed the idea of fighting him. I moved a step
forward.

"Mr. Davidson," I said to him, "I don't welcome dictation from you, not
on anything I choose to do or say."

Sigrid cried out in protest, and Varduk lifted up a hand. He smiled,
too, in a dazzling manner.

"I think," he said in sudden good humor, "that we are all tired and
shaken. Perhaps it's due to the unintentional realism of that incident
with the sword--I saw several faces grow pale. Suppose we say that the
rehearsals won't include so dangerous-looking an attack hereafter;
we'll save the trick for the public performance itself. And we'll stop
work now; in any case, it's supposed to be unlucky to speak the last
line of a play in rehearsal. Shall we all go and get some rest?"

He turned to Sigrid and offered his arm. She took it, and they walked
side by side out of the stage door and away. Martha Vining followed at
their heels, while Davidson lingered to turn out the lights. Jake and
I left together for our own boathouse loft. The moon was up, and I
jumped when leaves shimmered in its light--I remembered Jake's story
about the amorphous lurkers in the thickets.

But nothing challenged us, and we went silently to bed, though I, at
least, lay wakeful for hours.

_8. Pursuivant Again_

When finally I slept, it was to dream in strange, unrelated flashes.
The clearest impression of all was that Sigrid and Judge Pursuivant
came to lead me deep into the dark woods beyond the lodge. They seemed
to know their way through pathless thickets, and finally beckoned me to
follow into a deep, shadowed cleft between banks of earth. We descended
for miles, I judged in my dream, until we came to a bare, hard floor
at the bottom. Here was a wide, round hatchway of metal, like a very
large sewer lid. Bidding me watch, Sigrid and the judge bent and tugged
the lid up and away. Gazing down the exposed shaft, it was as if I saw
the heavens beneath my feet--the fathomlessness of the night sky, like
velvet all sprinkled with crumbs of star-fire. I did not know whether
to be joyful or to fear; then I had awakened, and it was bright morning.

The air was warmer than it had been the day before, and I donned
bathing-trunks and went downstairs, treading softly to let Jake snore
blissfully on. Almost at the door of the boathouse I came face to face
with Davidson, who smiled disarmingly and held out his hand. He urged
me to forget the brief hostility that had come over us at rehearsal; he
was quite unforced and cheerful about it, yet I surmised that Varduk
had bade him make peace with me. However, I agreed that we had both
been tired and upset, and we shook hands cordially.

Then I turned toward the water, and saw Sigrid lazily crawling out into
the deep stretches with long, smooth strokes. I called her name, ran
in waist-deep, and swam as swiftly as I could, soon catching up. She
smiled in welcome and turned on her side to say good-morning. In her
brief bathing-suit she did not look so gaunt and fragile. Her body was
no more than healthily slim, and quite firm and strong-looking.

As we swam easily, I was impelled to speak of my dream, and she smiled
again.

"I think that was rather beautiful, I mean about the heavens below your
feet," she said. "Symbolism might have something to say about it. In a
way the vision was prophetic--Judge Pursuivant has sent word that he
will call on us."

"Perhaps the rest was prophetic, too," I ventured boldly. "You and I
together, Sigrid--and heaven at our feet----"

"I've been in long enough," she announced suddenly, "and breakfast must
be ready. Come on, Gib, race me back to shore."

She was off like a trout, and I churned after her. We finished neck and
neck, separated and went away to dress. At breakfast, which Davidson
prepared simply but well of porridge, toast and eggs, I did not get to
sit next to Sigrid; Davidson and Jake had found places at her left and
right hands. I paid what attentions I could devise to Martha Vining,
but if Sigrid was piqued by my courtliness in another direction, she
gave no sign.

* * * * *

The meal over, I returned to my room, secured my copy of _Ruthven_ and
carried it outdoors to study. I chose a sun-drenched spot near the
lodge, set my back to a tree, and leafed through the play, underlining
difficult passages here and there. I remembered Varduk's announcement
that we would never speak the play's last line in rehearsal, lest
bad luck fall. He was superstitious, for all his apparent wisdom and
culture; yet, according to the books Judge Pursuivant had lent me,
so was Lord Byron, from whom Varduk claimed descent. What was the
ill-omened last line, by the way?

I turned to the last page of the script.

The final line, as typewritten by Davidson, contained only a few words.
My eyes found it:

"RUTHVEN (placing his hand on Mary's head):"

And no more than that. There was place for a speech after the stage
direction, apparently the monster's involuntary cry for blessing upon
the brave girl, but Davidson had not set down such a speech.

Amazed and in some unaccountable way uneasy, I walked around the corner
of the lodge to where Martha Vining, seated on the door-step, also
studied her lines. Before I had finished my first question, she nodded
violently.

"It's the same way on my script," she informed me. "You mean, the last
speech missing. I noticed last night, and mentioned it before breakfast
to Miss Holgar. She has no last line, either."

A soft chuckle drifted down upon us. Varduk had come to the open door.

"Davidson must have made a careless omission," he said. "Of course,
there is only one typescript of the play, with carbon copies. Well, if
the last line is missing, isn't it a definite sign that we should not
speak it in rehearsal?"

He rested his heavy gaze upon me, then upon Martha Vining, smiled to
conclude the discussion, and drew back into the hallway and beyond our
sight.

Perhaps I may be excused for not feeling completely at rest on the
subject.

Judge Pursuivant arrived for lunch, dressed comfortably in flannels and
a tweed jacket, and his performance at table was in healthy contrast to
Varduk, who, as usual, ate hardly anything. In the early afternoon I
induced the judge to come for a stroll up the slope and along the main
road. As soon as we were well away from the lodge, I told him of Jake's
adventure, the outcome of the sword-accident at rehearsal, and the air
of mystery that deepened around the omitted final speech of the play.

"Perhaps I'm being nervous and illusion-ridden," I began to apologize
in conclusion, but he shook his great head.

"You're being nothing of the sort, Connatt. Apparently my semi-psychic
intuition was good as gold. I did perfectly right in following this
drama and its company out here into the wilderness."

"You came deliberately?" I asked, and he nodded.

"My friend's cabin in the neighborhood was a stroke of good luck, and
I more than half courted the invitation to occupy it. I'll be frank,
Connatt, and say that from the outset I have felt a definite and occult
challenge from Varduk and his activities."

He chopped at a weed with his big malacca stick, pondered a moment,
then continued.

"Your Mr. Varduk is a mysterious fellow. I need not enlarge on that,
though I might remind you of the excellent reason for his strange
character and behavior."

"Byron's blood?"

"Exactly. And Byron's curse."

I stopped in mid-stride and turned to face the judge. He smiled
somewhat apologetically.

"I know, Connatt," he said, "that modern men and women think such
things impossible. They think it equally impossible that anyone of
good education and normal mind should take occultism seriously. But I
disprove the latter impossibility, at least--I hold degrees from three
world-famous universities, and my behavior, at least, shows that I am
neither morbid nor shallow."

"Certainly not," I assented, thinking of his hearty appetite, his
record of achievement in many fields, his manifest kindness and
sincerity.

"Then consent to hear my evidence out." He resumed his walk, and I fell
into step with him. "It's only circumstantial evidence, I fear, and as
such must not be entirely conclusive. Yet here it is:

"Byron was the ideal target for a curse, not only personally but
racially. His forebears occupied themselves with revolution, dueling,
sacrilege and lesser sins--they were the sort who attract and merit
disaster. As for his immediate parents, it would be difficult to
choose a more depraved father than Captain 'Mad Jack' Byron, or a more
unnatural mother than Catherine Gordon of Gight. Brimstone was bred
into the child's very soul by those two. Follow his career, and what is
there? Pride, violence, orgy, disgrace. Over his married life hangs a
shocking cloud, an unmentionable accusation--rightly or not we cannot
say. As for his associates, they withered at his touch. His children,
lawful and natural, died untimely and unhappy. His friends found ruin
or death. Even Doctor Polidori, plagiarist of the _Ruthven_ story,
committed suicide. Byron himself, when barely past his first youth,
perished alone and far from home and friends. Today his bright fame is
blurred and tarnished by a wealth of legend that can be called nothing
less than diabolic."

"Yet he wasn't all unlucky," I sought to remind my companion. "His
beauty and brilliance, his success as a poet----"

"All part of the curse. When could he be thankful for a face that drew
the love of Lady Caroline Lamb and precipitated one of London's most
fearful scandals? As for his poetry, did it not mark him for envy,
spite and, eventually, a concerted attack? I daresay Byron would have
been happier as a plain-faced mechanic or grocer."

I felt inclined to agree, and said as much. "If a curse exists," I
added, "would it affect Varduk as a descendant of Byron?"

"I think that it would, and that his recent actions prove at once the
existence of a curse and the truth of his claim to descent. A shadow
lies on that man, Connatt."

"The rest of the similarity holds," I responded. "The charm and the
genius. I have wondered why Miss Holgar agrees to this play. It is
archaic, in some degree melodramatic, and her part is by no means
dominant. Yet she seems delighted with the rôle and the production in
general."

"I have considered the same apparent lapse of her judgment," said
Pursuivant, "and came to the conclusion that you are about to
suggest--that Varduk has gained some sort of influence over Miss
Holgar."

"Perhaps, then, you feel that such an influence would be dangerous to
her and to others?"

"Exactly."

"What to do, then?"

"Do nothing, gentlemen," said someone directly behind us.

We both whirled in sudden surprize. It was Elmo Davidson.

_9. Davidson Gives a Warning_

I scowled at Davidson in surprized protest at his intrusion. Judge
Pursuivant did not scowl, but I saw him lift his walking-stick with his
left hand, place his right upon the curved handle, and gave it a little
twist and jerk, as though preparing to draw a cork from a bottle.