Varenukha, still staring at the telegram, scribbled something in the notebook, and the woman disappeared.

he could hear from somewhere far away a deep, somber voice singing, " the cliffs, my refuge..." and Varenukha decided that a voice from some radio station had somehow cut into the telephone circuit.

" There's no answer at the apartment, " said Varenukha, hanging up the phone. " Perhaps I should try again..."

He didn't finish his sentence. The same woman appeared in the door again, and both Rimsky and Varenukha got up to meet her, but this time it was a dark sheet of paper that she removed from her bag, rather than a small white square.

" This is beginning to get interesting, " said Varenukha through his teeth, staring after the woman as she made a quick exit Rimsky was the first to get hold of the sheet

Against the dark background of the photographic paper, one could clearly make out black, handwritten lines: " Proof my handwriting my signature Wire confirmation put Woland under secret surveillance. Likhodeyev."

During his twenty years in the theater Varenukha had seen a lot of things, but now he felt as if a shroud were covering his brain, and he was unable to say anything except the trite and, moreover, utterly absurd phrase, " This can't be! "

Rimsky, on the other hand, reacted differently. He got up, opened the door, and roared at the messenger girl sitting on the stool outside, " Don't let anyone in unless they have mail to deliver)" —and locked the door.

Then he took a pile of papers out of his desk and began a careful comparison of the bold, backward-slanting letters in the photogram and the letters in Styopa's memoranda and in his signatures, which were embellished with a spiral flourish. Varenukha leaned over the desk and breathed hotly on Rimsky's cheek.

" It's his handwriting, all right, " the financial director finally pronounced, and Varenukha echoed him, " His, indeed."

When Varenukha looked into Rimsky's face, he was amazed by the change that had taken place. The already thin financial director seemed to have gotten even thinner and to have aged, and the eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses had lost their customary sharpness, and expressed not only alarm, but sorrow as well.

Varenukha did everything you expect someone to do who is in a state of shock: he ran around the office and raised his arms up twice, like someone crucified, drank a whole glass of yellowish water from the carafe, and exclaimed, " I don't understand! I don't understand! I do not understand! "

Rimsky stared out the window, thinking intensely about something. The financial director was in a very difficult position: he had to devise, right on the spot, an ordinary explanation for out-of-the-ordinary happenings.