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.
II
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 handmade 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
