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.