Judge Pursuivant appeared at noon the next day, and Varduk, hailing him cordially, invited him to lunch.
“I wonder,” ventured Varduk as we all sat down together, “if you, Judge Pursuivant, would not speak a few words in our favor before the curtain tonight.”
“I?” The judge stared, then laughed. “But I’m not part of the management.”
“The management—which means myself—will be busy getting into costume for the first act. You are a scholar, a man whose recent book on Byron has attracted notice. It is fitting that you do what you can to help our opening.”
“Oh,” said Pursuivant, “if you put it like that—but what shall I tell the audience?”
“Make it as short as you like, but impressive. You might announce that all present are subpenaed as witnesses to a classic moment.”
Pursuivant smiled. “That’s rather good, Mr. Varduk, and quite true as well. Very good, count on me.”
But after lunch he drew me almost forcibly away from the others, talking affably about the merits of various wines until we were well out of earshot. Then his tone changed abruptly.
“I think we know now that the thing—whatever it is—will happen at the play, and we also know why.”
“Why, then?” I asked at once.
“I am to tell the audience that they are ‘subpenaed as witnesses.’ In other words, their attention is directed, they must be part of a certain ceremony. I, too, am needed. Varduk is making me the clerk, so to speak, of his court—or his cult. That shows that he will preside.”
“It begins to mean something,” I admitted. “Yet I am still at a loss.”
Pursuivant’s own pale lips were full of perplexity. “I wish that we could know more before the actual beginning. Yet I, who once prepared and judged legal cases, may be able to sum up in part:
“Something is to happen to Miss Holgar. The entire fabric of theatrical activity—this play, the successful effort to interest her in it, the remote theater, her particular role, everything—is to perform upon her a certain effect. That effect, we may be sure, is devastating. We may believe that a part, at least, of the success depends on the last line of the play, a mystery as yet to all of us.”
“Except to Varduk,” I reminded.
“Except to Varduk.”
But a new thought struck me, and for a moment I found it comforting.
“Wait. The ceremony, as you call it, can’t be all evil,” I said. “After all, he asks her to swear on a Bible.”
“So he does,” Pursuivant nodded. “What kind of a Bible?”
I tried to remember. “To tell the truth, I don’t know. We haven’t used props of any kind in rehearsals—not even the sword, after that first time.”
“No? Look here, that’s apt to be significant. We’ll have to look at the properties.”
We explored the auditorium and the stage with a fine show of casual interest. Davidson and Switz were putting final touches on the scenery—a dark blue backdrop for evening sky, a wall painted to resemble vine-hung granite, benches and an arbor—but no properties lay on the table backstage.
“You know this is a Friday, Gib?” demanded Jake, looking up from where he was mending the cable of a floodlight. “Bad luck, opening our play on a Friday.”
“Not a bit,” laughed Pursuivant. “What’s begun on a Friday never comes to an end. Therefore—”
“Oi!” crowed Jake. “That means we’ll have a record-breaking run, huh?” He jumped up and shook my hand violently. “You’ll be working in this show till you step on your beard.”
We wandered out again, and Sigrid joined us. She was in high spirits.
“I feel,” she said excitedly, “just as I felt on the eve of my first professional appearance. As though the world would end tonight!”
“God forbid,” I said at once, and “God forbid,” echoed Judge Pursuivant. Sigrid laughed merrily at our sudden expressions of concern.
“Oh, it won’t end that way,” she made haste to add, in the tone one reserves for children who need comfort. “I mean, the world will begin tonight, with success and happiness.”
She put out a hand, and I squeezed it tenderly. After a moment she departed to inspect her costume.
“I haven’t a maid or a dresser,” she called over her shoulder. “Everything has to be in perfect order, and I myself must see to it.”
We watched her as she hurried away, both of us sober.
“I think I know why you fret so about her safety,” Pursuivant said to me. “You felt, too, that the thing she said might be a bad omen.”
“Then may her second word be a good omen,” I returned.
“Amen to that,” he said heartily.
Dinnertime came, and Pursuivant and I made a quick meal of it. We excused ourselves before the others—Sigrid looked up in mild astonishment that I should want to leave her side—and went quickly downstairs to the stage.
On the property table lay the cudgel I was to use in the first act, the sword I was to strike with in the second, the feather duster to be wielded by Martha Vining as Bridget, a tray with a wine service to be borne by Davidson as Oscar. There was also a great book, bound in red cloth, with red edging.
“That is the Bible,” said Pursuivant at once. “I must have a look at it.”
“I still can’t see,” I muttered, half to myself, “how this sword—a good piece of steel and as sharp as a razor—failed to kill Varduk when I—”
“Never mind that sword,” interrupted Judge Pursuivant. “Look at this book, this ‘Bible’ which they’ve refused to produce up to now. I’m not surprised to find out that—well, have a look for yourself.”
On the ancient black cloth I saw rather spidery capitals, filled with red coloring matter: Grand Albert.
“I wouldn’t look inside if I were you,” warned the judge. “This is in all probability the book that Varduk owned when Davidson met him at Revere College. Remember what happened to one normal young man, ungrounded in occultism, who peeped into it.”
“What can it be?” I asked.
“A notorious gospel for
