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That Evening
Judge Pursuivant and I remained sitting on the roadside bank until Davidson had completely vanished around a tree-clustered bend of the way. Then my companion lifted a heavy walking-boot and tapped the dottle from his pipe against the thick sole.
“How did that cheerful little story impress you?” he inquired.
I shook my head dubiously. My mustache prickled on my upper lip, like the mane of a nervous dog. “If it was true,” I said slowly, “how did Davidson dare tell it?”
“Probably because he was ordered to.”
I must have stared foolishly. “You think that—”
Pursuivant nodded. “My knowledge of underworld argot is rather limited, but I believe that the correct phrase is ‘lay off.’ We’re being told to do that, and in a highly interesting manner. As to whether or not the story is true, I’m greatly inclined to believe that it is.”
I drew another cigarette from my package, and my hand trembled despite itself. “Then the man is dangerous—Varduk, I mean. What is he trying to do to Sigrid?”
“That is what perplexes me. Once, according to your little friend Jake Switz, he defended her from some mysterious but dangerous beings. His behavior argues that he isn’t the only power to consider.”
The judge held a match for my cigarette. His hand was steady, and its steadiness comforted me.
“Now then,” I said, “to prevent—whatever is being done.”
“That’s what we’d better talk about.” Pursuivant took his stick and rose to his feet. “Let’s get on with our walk, and make sure this time that nobody overhears us.”
We began to saunter, while he continued, slowly and soberly:
“You feel that it is Miss Holgar who is threatened. That’s no more than guesswork on your part, supplemented by the natural anxiety of a devoted admirer—if you’ll pardon my mentioning that—but you are probably right. Varduk seems to have exerted all his ingenuity and charm to induce her to take a part in this play, and at this place. The rest of you he had gathered more carelessly. It is reasonably safe to say that whatever happens will happen to Miss Holgar.”
“But what will happen?” I urged, feeling very depressed.
“That we do not know as yet,” I began to speak again, but he lifted a hand. “Please let me finish. Perhaps you think that we should do what we can to call off the play, get Miss Holgar out of here. But I reply, having given the matter deep thought, that such a thing is not desirable.”
“Not desirable?” I echoed, my voice rising in startled surprise. “You mean, she must stay here? In heaven’s name, why?”
“Because evil is bound to occur. To spirit her away will be only a retreat. The situation must be allowed to develop—then we can achieve victory. Why, Connatt,” he went on warmly, “can you not see that the whole atmosphere is charged with active and supernormal perils? Don’t you know that such a chance, for meeting and defeating the power of wickedness, seldom arises? What can you think of when you want to run away?”
“I’m not thinking of myself, sir,” I told him. “It’s Sigrid. Miss Holgar.”
“Handsomely put. All right, then; when you go back to the lodge, tell her what we’ve said and suggest that she leave.”
I shook my head, more hopelessly than before. “You know that she wouldn’t take me seriously.”
“Just so. Nobody will take seriously the things we are beginning to understand, you and I. We have to fight alone—but we’ll win.” He began to speak more brightly. “When is the play supposed to have its first performance?”
“Sometime after the middle of July. I’ve heard Varduk say as much several times, though he did not give the exact date.”
Pursuivant grew actually cheerful. “That means that we have three weeks or so. Something will happen around that time—presumably on opening night. If time was not an element, he would not have defended her on her first night here.”
I felt somewhat reassured, and we returned from our stroll in fairly good spirits.
Varduk again spoke cordially to Pursuivant, and invited him to stay to dinner. “I must ask that you leave shortly afterward,” he concluded the invitation. “Our rehearsals have something of secrecy about them. You won’t be offended if—”
“Of course not,” Pursuivant assured him readily, but later the judge found a moment to speak with me. “Keep your eyes open,” he said earnestly. “He feels that I, in some degree familiar with occult matters, might suspect or even discover something wrong about the play. We’ll talk later about the things you see.”
The evening meal was the more pleasant for Judge Pursuivant’s high-humored presence. He was gallant to the ladies, deferential to Varduk, and witty to all of us. Even the pale, haunted face of our producer relaxed in a smile once or twice, and when the meal was over and Pursuivant was ready to go, Varduk accompanied him to the door, speaking graciously the while.
“You will pardon me if I see you safely to the road. It is no more than evening, yet I have a feeling—”
“And I have the same feeling,” said Pursuivant, not at all heavily. “I appreciate your offer of protection.”
Varduk evidently suspected a note of mockery. He paused. “There are things, Judge Pursuivant,” he said, “against which ordinary protection would not suffice. You have borne arms, I believe, yet you know that they will not always avail.”
They had come to the head of the front stairs, leading down to the lobby of the theater. The others at table were chattering over a second cup of coffee, but I was straining my ears to hear what the judge and Varduk were saying.
“Arms? Yes, I’ve borne them,” Pursuivant admitted. “Oddly enough, I’m armed now. Should you care to see?”
He lifted his malacca walking-stick in both hands, grasping its shank and the handle. A twist and a jerk, and it came apart, revealing a few inches of metal. Pursuivant drew forth, as from a sheath, a thin, gleaming blade.
“Sword-cane!” exclaimed Varduk admiringly. He bent for a closer look.
“And a singularly interesting one,” elaborated Pursuivant. “Quite old, as you can see for yourself.”
“Ah, so it is,” agreed Varduk. “I fancy you had it put into the cane?”
“I did. Look at the inscription.”
Varduk peered. “Yes, I can make it out, though it seems worn.” He pursed his lips, then read aloud, very slowly: “Sic pereant omnes inimici tui, Domine. It sounds like Scripture.”
“That’s what it is, Mr. Varduk,” Pursuivant was saying blandly. “The King James Version has it: ‘So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord.’ It’s from Deborah’s song—fifth chapter of Judges.”
Varduk was plainly intrigued. “A warlike text, I must say. What knight of the church chose it for his battle cry?”
“Many have chosen it,” responded the judge. “Shall we go on?”
They walked down the stairs side by side, and so out of my sight and hearing.
When Varduk returned he called us at once to rehearsal. He was as alert as he had been the night before, but much harder to please. Indeed, he criticized speeches and bits of stage business that had won his high praise at the earlier rehearsal, and several times he called for repetitions and new interpretations. He also announced that at the third rehearsal, due the next day, he would take away our scripts.
“You are all accomplished actors,” he amplified. “You need nothing to refresh good memories.”
“I’d like to keep my book,” begged Martha Vining, but Varduk smiled and shook his head.
“You’ll be better without,” he said definitely.
When we approached the climactic scene, with Swithin’s attempt to kill Ruthven and Mary’s attempted sacrifice, Varduk did not insist on stage business; in fact, he asked us flatly to speak our lines without so much as moving from our places. If this was to calm us after the frightening events of the night before, it did not succeed. Everyone there remembered the accidental sword-thrust, and Varduk’s seeming invulnerability; it was as though their thoughts were doleful spoken words.
Rehearsal over—again without the final line by Ruthven—Varduk bade us a courteous good night and, as before, walked out first with Sigrid and Martha Vining. I followed with Jake, but at the threshold I touched his arm.
“Come with me,” I muttered, and turned toward the front of the lodge.
Varduk and the two women had gone out of sight around the rear of the building. Nobody challenged us as we walked silently in the direction of the road, but I had a sensation as of horrors all around me, inadequately bound back with strands that might snap at any moment.
“What’s it about, Gib?” asked Jake once, but at that moment I saw what I had somehow expected and feared to see.
A silent figure lay at the foot of the upward-sloping driveway to the road. We both ran forward, coming up on either side of that figure.
The moon showed through broken clouds. By its light we recognized Judge Pursuivant, limp and apparently lifeless. Beside him lay the empty shank of his walking-stick. His right fist still clenched around the handle, and the slender blade set therein was driven deeply into the loam.
I did not know what to do, but Jake did. He knelt, scooped the judge’s head up and set it against his knee, then slapped the flaccid cheeks with his open palm. Pursuivant’s eyelids and mustache fluttered.
Jake snorted approvingly and lifted his own crossed eyes to mine. “I guess he’s all right, Gib. Just passed out is all. Maybe better you go to Varduk and ask for some brand—”
He broke off suddenly. He was staring at something behind me.
I turned, my heart quivering inside my chest.
Shapes—monstrous, pallid, unclean shapes—were closing in upon us.