IX
Davidson Gives a Warning
I scowled at Davidson in surprised 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. Davidson grinned placatingly.
“Please, gentlemen! I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, or to do anything else sneaking. It was only that I went for a walk, too, saw the pair of you ahead, and hurried to catch up. I couldn’t help but hear the final words you were saying, and I couldn’t help but warn you.”
We relaxed, but Judge Pursuivant repeated “Warn?” in a tone deeply frigid.
“May I amplify? First of all, Varduk certainly does not intend to harm either of you. Second, he isn’t the sort of man to be crossed in anything.”
“I suppose not,” I rejoined, trying to be casual. “You must be pretty sure, Davidson, of his capabilities and character.”
He nodded. “We’ve been together since college.”
Pursuivant leaned on his stick and produced his well-seasoned briar pipe. “It’s comforting to hear you say that. I mean, that Mr. Varduk was once a college boy. I was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t thousands of years old.”
Davidson shook his head slowly. “See here, why don’t we sit down on the bank and talk? Maybe I’ll tell you a story.”
“Very good,” agreed Pursuivant, and sat down. I did likewise, and we both gazed expectantly at Davidson. He remained standing, with hands in pockets, until Pursuivant had kindled his pipe and I my cigarette. Then:
“I’m not trying to frighten you, and I won’t give away any real secrets about my employer. It’s just that you may understand better after you learn how I met him.
“It was more than ten years ago. Varduk came to Revere College as a freshman when I was a junior. He was much the same then as he is now—slender, quiet, self-contained, enigmatic. I got to know him better than anyone in school, and I can’t say truly that I know him, not even now.
“Revere, in case you never heard of the place, is a small school with a big reputation for grounding its students hock-deep in the classics.”
Pursuivant nodded and emitted a cloud of smoke. “I knew your Professor Dahlberg of Revere,” he interjected. “He’s one of the great minds of the age on Greek literature and history.”
Davidson continued: “The buildings at Revere are old and, you might say, swaddled in the ivy planted by a hundred graduating classes. The traditions are consistently mellow, and none of the faculty members come in for much respect until they are past seventy. Yet the students are very much like any others, when class is over. In my day, at least, we gave more of a hoot for one touchdown than for seven thousand odes of Horace.”
He smiled a little, as though in mild relish of memories he had evoked within himself.
“The football team wasn’t very good, but it wasn’t very bad, either. It meant something to be on the first team, and I turned out to be a fairish tackle. At the start of my junior year, the year I’m talking about, a man by the name of Schaefer was captain—a good fullback though not brilliant, and the recognized leader of the campus.
“Varduk didn’t go in for athletics, or for anything else except a good stiff course of study, mostly in the humanities. He took a room at the end of the hall on the third floor of the men’s dormitory, and kept to himself. You know how a college dorm loves that, you men. Six days after the term started, the Yellow Dogs had him on their list.”
“Who were the Yellow Dogs?” I asked.
“Oh, there’s a bunch like it in every school. Spiritual descendants of the Mohocks that flourished in Queen Anne’s reign; rough and rowdy undergraduates, out for Halloween pranks every night. And any student, particularly any frosh, that stood on his dignity—” He paused and let our imagination finish the potentialities of such a situation.
“So, one noon after lunch at the training-table, Schaefer winked at me and a couple of other choice spirits. We went to our rooms and got out our favorite paddles, carved from barrel-staves and lettered over with fraternity emblems and wisecracks. Then we tramped up to the third floor and knocked loudly at Varduk’s door.
“He didn’t answer. We tried the knob. The lock was on, so Schaefer dug his big shoulder into the panel and smashed his way in.”
Davidson stopped and drew a long breath, as if with it he could win a better ability to describe the things he was telling.
“Varduk lifted those big, deep eyes of his as we appeared among the ruins of his door. No fear, not even surprise. Just a long look, traveling from one of us to another. When he brought his gaze to me, I felt as if somebody was pointing two guns at me, two guns loaded to their muzzles.”
I, listening, felt like saying I knew how he had felt, but I did not interrupt.
“He was sitting comfortably in an armchair,” went on Davidson, rocking on his feet as though nervous with the memory, “and in his slender hands he held a big dark book. His forefinger marked a place between the leaves.
“ ‘Get up, frosh,’ Schaefer said, ‘and salute your superiors.’
“Varduk did not move or speak. He looked, and Schaefer bellowed louder, against a sudden and considerable uneasiness.
“ ‘What are you reading there?’ he demanded of Varduk in his toughest voice.
“ ‘A very interesting work,’ Varduk replied gently. ‘It teaches how to rule people.’
“ ‘Uh-huh?’ Schaefer sneered at him. ‘Let’s have a look at it.’
“ ‘I doubt if you would like it,’ Varduk said, but Schaefer made a grab. The book came open in his hands. He bent, as if to study it.
“Then he took a blind, lumbering step backward. He smacked into the rest of us all bunched behind him, and without us I think he might have fallen down. I couldn’t see his face, but the back of his big bull-neck had turned as white as plaster. He made two efforts to speak before he managed it. Then all he could splutter out was ‘Wh-what—’ ”
Davidson achieved rather well the manner of a strong, simple man gone suddenly shaky with fright.
“ ‘I told you that you probably wouldn’t like it,’ Varduk said, like an adult reminding a child. Then he got up out of his armchair and took the book from Schaefer’s hands. He began to talk again. ‘Schaefer, I want to see you here in this room after you finish your football practise this afternoon.’
“Schaefer didn’t make any answer. All of us edged backward and got out of there.”
Davidson paused, so long that Pursuivant asked, “Is that all?”
“No, it isn’t. In a way, it’s just the beginning. Schaefer made an awful fool of himself five or six times on the field that day. He dropped every one of his passes from center when we ran signals, and five or six times he muffed the ball at dropkick practise. The coach told him in front of everybody that he acted like a high school yokel. When we finished and took our showers, he hung back until I came out, so as to walk to the dormitory with me. He tagged along like a frightened kid brother, and when we got to the front door he started upstairs like an old man. He wanted to turn toward his own room on the second floor; but Varduk’s voice spoke his name, and we both looked up, startled. On the stairs to the third flight stood Varduk, holding that black book open against his chest.
“He spoke to Schaefer. ‘I told you that I wanted to see you.’
“Schaefer tried to swear at him. After all, here was a frail, pale little frosh, who didn’t seem to have an ounce of muscle on his bones, giving orders to a big football husky who weighed more than two hundred pounds. But the swear words sort of strangled in his throat. Varduk laughed. Neither of you have ever heard a sound so soft or merciless.
“ ‘Perhaps you’d like me to come to your room after you,’ Varduk suggested.
“Schaefer turned and came slowly to the stairs and up them. When he got level with Varduk, I didn’t feel much like watching the rest. As I moved away toward my room, I saw Varduk slip his slender arm through Schaefer’s big, thick one and fall into step with him, just as if they were going to have the nicest schoolboy chat you can imagine.”
Davidson shuddered violently, and so, despite the warm June air, did I. Pursuivant seemed a shade less pink.
“Here, I’ve talked too much,” Davidson said, with an air of embarrassment. “Probably it’s because I’ve wanted to tell this story—over a space of years. No point in holding back the end, but I’d greatly appreciate your promise—both your promises—that you’ll not pass the tale on.”
We both gave our words, and urged him to continue. He did so.
“I had barely got to my own digs when there was a frightful row outside, shouts and scamperings and screamings; yes, screamings, of young men scared out of their wits. I jumped up and hurried downstairs and out. There lay Schaefer on the pavement in front of the dormitory. He was dead, with the brightest red blood all over him. About twenty witnesses, more or less, had seen him as he jumped out of Varduk’s window.
“The faculty and the police came, and Varduk spent hours with them, being questioned. But he told them something satisfactory, for he was let go and never charged with any responsibility.
“Late that night, as I sat alone at my desk trying to drive from my mind’s eye the bright, bright red of Schaefer’s blood, a gentle knock sounded at my door. I got up and opened. There stood Varduk, and he held in his hands that black volume. I saw the dark red edging on its pages, the color of blood three hours old.
“ ‘I wondered,’ he said in his soft voice, ‘if you’d like to see the thing in my book that made your friend Schaefer so anxious to leave my room.’
“I assured him that I did not. He smiled and came in, all uninvited.
“Then he spoke, briefly but very clearly, about certain things he hoped to do, and about how he needed a helper. He said that I might be that helper. I made no reply, but he knew that I would not refuse.
“He ordered me to kneel, and I did. Then he showed me how to put my hands together and set them between his palms. The oath I took was the medieval oath of vassalage. And I have kept my oath from that day to this.”
Davidson abruptly strode back along the way to the lodge. He stopped at half a dozen paces’ distance.
“Maybe I’d better get along,” he suggested. “You two may want to think and talk about what I have said, and my advice not to get in Varduk’s way.”
With that he resumed his departure, and went out of sight without once looking back again.