Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 01.djvu/57

 toward him. I offered him my hand, and he gave it a quick, sharp pressure, as though he were investigating the texture of my flesh and bone.

"I am glad to see you here so soon, Mr. Connatt," he said cordially. "Now we need wait only for Miss Vining, who should arrive before dark. Miss Holgar came yesterday, and Davidson this morning."

"There will be only the six of us, then?" I asked.

He nodded his chestnut curls. "A caretaker will come here each day, to prepare lunch and dinner and to dean. He lives several miles up the road, and will spend his nights at home. But we of the play itself will be in residence, and we alone — a condition fully in character, I feel, with the attitude of mystery and reserve we have assumed toward our interesting production. For breakfasts, Davidson will be able to look after us."

"Hull!" grunted Jake. "That Davidson can act, manage, stage-hand, cook — he does everything."

"Almost everything," said Varduk dryly, and his eyes turned long and expressionlessly upon my friend, who immediately subsided. In the daylight I saw that Varduk's eyes were hazel; on the night I had met him at his hotel they had seemed thunder-dark.

"You, too, are considered useful at many things around the theater, Switz," Varduk continued. "I took that into consideration when Miss Holgar, though she left her maid behind, insisted on including you in the company. I daresay, we can depend on you to help Davidson with the staging and so on."

"Oh, yes, sure," Jake made reply. "Certainly. Miss Holgar, she wants me to do that."

"Very good." Varduk turned on the heel of his well-polished boot. "Suppose," he added over his shoulder, "that you take Mr. Connatt up to the loft of the boathouse. Mr. Connatt, do you mind putting up with Switz?"

"Not in the least," I assured him readily, and took up two of my bags. Jake had already lifted the third and heaviest.

We nodded to Varduk and skirted the side of the lodge, walked down to the water, then entered the boathouse. It was a simple affair of well-chinked logs. Two leaky-looking canoes still occupied the lower part of it, but we picked our way past them and ascended a sturdy staircase to a loft under the peaked roof. This had been finished with wall-board and boasted a window at each end. Two cots, a rug, a wash-stand, a table and several chairs made it an acceptable sleeping-apartment.

"This theater is half-way to the never-never land," I commented as I began to unpack.

"I should live so — I never saw the like of it," Jake said earnestly. "How are people going to find their way here? Yesterday I began to talk about signs by the side of the road. Right off at once, Varduk said no. I begged like a poor relation left out of his uncle's will. Finally he said yes — but the signs must be small and dignified, and put up only a day before the show begins."

I wanted to ask a question about his adventure of the previous night, but Jake shook his head in refusal to discuss it. "Not here," he said. "Gib, who knows who may be listening?" He dropped his voice. "Or even what might be listening?"

I lapsed into silence and got out old canvas sneakers, flannel slacks and a Norfolk jacket, and changed into them. Dressed in this easy manner, I left the boathouse and stood beside the lake. At once a voice hailed me. Sigrid was