The Black Drama

A strange weird story about the eery personality known as Varduk, who claimed descent from Lord Byron, and the hideous doom that stalked in his wake.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales June, July, August 1938. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Powers, passions, all I see in other beings, Have been to me as rain unto the sands Since that all-nameless hour.

--Lord Byron: Manfred.

Foreword

Unlike most actors, I do not consider my memoirs worth the attention of the public. Even if I did so consider them, I have no desire to carry my innermost dear secrets to market. Often and often I have flung aside the autobiography of some famous man or woman, crying aloud: "Surely this is the very nonpareil of bad taste!"

Yet my descendants--and, after certain despairful years, again I have hope of descendants--will want to know something about me. I write this record of utterly strange happenings while it is yet new and clear in my mind, and I shall seal it and leave it among my important possessions, to be found and dealt with at such time as I may die. It is not my wish that the paper be published or otherwise brought to the notice of any outside my immediate family and circle of close friends. Indeed, if I thought that such a thing would happen I might write less frankly.

Please believe me, you who will read; I know that part of the narrative will strain any credulity, yet I am ready with the now-threadbare retort of Lord Byron, of whose works more below: "Truth is stranger than fiction." I have, too, three witnesses who have agreed to vouch for the truth of what I have set down. Their only criticism is that I have spoken too kindly of them. If anything, I have not spoken kindly enough.

Like Peter Quince in A Midsummer Night's Dream, I have rid my prolog like a rough colt. Perhaps, like Duke Theseus, you my readers will be assured thereby of my sincerity.

Signed, GILBERT CONNATT, New York City August 1, 1938

We, the undersigned, having read the appended statement of Gilbert Connatt, do hereby declare it to be true in substance.

Signed, SIGRID HOLGAR KEITH HILARY PURSUIVANT JACOB A. SWITZ

1. Drafted

The counterman in the little hamburger stand below Times Square gazed at me searchingly.

"Haven't I seen you somewhere?" he asked, and when I shook my head he made a gesture as of inspiration. "I got it, buddy. There was a guy in a movie like you--tall, thin--black mustache and eyes----"

"I'm not in pictures," I told him, quite truthfully as concerned the moment. "Make me a double hamburger."

"And coffee?"

"Yes." Then I remembered that I had but fifteen cents, and that double hamburgers cost a dime. I might want a second sandwich. "Make it a single instead."

"No, a double," piped somebody at my elbow, and a short, plump figure climbed upon the next stool. "Two doubles, for me and my friend here, and I'm paying. Gilbert Connatt, at half-past the eleventh hour I run onto you by the luck of the Switzes. I am glad to see you like an old father to see his wandering boy."

I had known that voice of old in Hollywood. Turning, I surveyed the fat, blob-nosed face, the crossed eyes behind shell-rimmed glasses, the thick, curly hair, the ingratiating smile. "Hello, Jake," I greeted him without enthusiasm.

Jake Switz waved at the counterman. "Two coffees with those hamburgers." His strange oblique gaze shifted back to me. "Gib, to me you are more welcome than wine at a wedding. In an uptown hotel who do you think is wondering about you with tears in her eyes as big as electric light bulbs?" He shrugged and extended his palms, as if pleased at being able to answer his own question. "Sigrid Holgar!"