Chessmen of Doom

by John Bellairs

  "Come on, boys!" he said, as he sprang out of the car. "I want to show you something!"

  Fergie and Johnny followed the professor down some stone steps and through the weedy garden to a place where the ground dropped away suddenly. A brick retaining wall marked the end of the garden, and beyond it lay a long sloping lawn that looked like the fairway on a golf course. At the far end of the lawn a tall red granite column rose into the sky. It seemed to be topped by a statue, but at this distance it was hard to tell.

  Fergie and Johnny rushed to the wall to stare. "Get a load of that! exclaimed Fergie in amazement. "What is it?"

  "Oh, that is just one of the lovely ornaments that my wacky brother added to his wonderful estate," said the professor with a careless shrug. "It is a column in honor of General Nicholas Herkimer, who won the Battle of Oriskany in the year 1777. He and a bunch of ragtag militiamen beat the British redcoats led by Colonel Barry St. Leger. The battle took place in the Mohawk Valley, which is many hundreds of miles from here, and please don't ask me why my dear brother was so interested in General Herkimer—he just was, that's all. The column is three hundred feet high, and you actually can walk up the inside of it. Come on—let's go have a closer look."

  The boys followed the professor along the brick wall to a place where a long concrete staircase descended to the grassy plain below. They walked down the steps and then started the long trek toward the column. The afternoon sun had broken through the gray clouds that were piling up in the sky, and long shafts of reddish light fell across the grass. On they plodded, till finally they stood at the base of the column. A bolt-studded iron door was set into the stonework, and it appeared to be locked. But the professor had a key, and after he had shoved the groaning door inward, the three of them began to climb the endless spiralling stair. The flinty steps would up and up, and the air inside the column was stifling and hot. Finally, after an exhausting trek, the climbers saw light shining through a narrow slit in the stone. After a few more steps they were out on the round platform at the top of the column. Above them towered the pigeon-streaked statue of General Herkimer, who brandished his sword bravely and waved his imaginary troops onward. They looked out at the vast rolling landscape. Behind them lay the mansion, and to the right was a small part of Lake Umbagog. The late sunlight stained the water orange, and a small domed building stood on a wooded cliff overlooking the lake.

  "Hey, what's that?" Fergie asked, as he pointed. "Is it a temple or something?"

  The professor smiled and shook his head. "No, Byron, that is another of the odd little surprises that this estate contains. It is an observatory. My charming brother got interested in astronomy about twenty years ago, so he built that domed thingamajig and equipped it with a large telescope. He used to go up there to study the stars and look for comets, but one night—believe it or not—a falling meteorite hit the telescope's lens and shattered it. Well, my brother took that as a sign from heaven that he ought to stop messing around with astronomy. So he closed up the observatory and padlocked it, and as far as I know no one's been in there in the last ten years."

  Johnny looked puzzled. "Professor," he said hesitantly, "that part about the meteorite being a sign from heaven—it might be true, you know. I mean, what are the chances of something like that happening, just by accident?"

  "Pretty darned small," said the professor, as he drummed his fingers on the balcony's rusty rail. "However, I wouldn't jump to conclusions if I were you. That 'meteorite' may have been someone with a twenty-two rifle. Anyway, I'll take you and Fergie over there sometime. The place has probably gone to ruin, but it might be worth exploring." He paused and yawned hugely. "As for myself," he said sleepily, "I feel like going back to the old manse for a little rest. It's been a long, hard day of driving, and these old bones ain't what they used to be. Perry had a TV set installed a few years ago, and there are some nice comfortable chairs in the study. Why don't we go back and collapse?"

  Fergie and Johnny nodded wearily, and the three of them began the long march back down the column. As they walked toward the mansion, a cold wind began to blow. Once again the sky clouded over, and a fine drizzling mist fell. By the time they got back to the mansion, they were exhausted. The rooms of the old house seemed cold and clammy, and when the professor tried to turn the heat on, nothing happened. So they all gathered in the book-lined study, and the professor built a fire in the fireplace. The TV was working fine, and the boys got some Cokes out of the refrigerator and returned to the study, where they dumped themselves into two big sagging armchairs. The professor perched on the couch, put his feet up on the coffee table, and lit a Balkan Sobranie cigarette. Heavy rain began to beat against the dusty windows, but in the firelit room everything seemed cozy and homelike. The television show was a rerun of The Web, a spooky mystery show that the professor liked.

  "There now, boys," he said lazily, as he blew a thin stream of smoke out of his mouth, "you see that roughing it in the northern wilderness is not so bad after all. Tomorrow we will go shopping and lay in some supplies, and then—good God, what was that?"

  The boys jumped and then looked quickly at the professor. "What is it?" asked Johnny excitedly. "What happened?"

  The professor didn't know what to say. He had glanced off to his right, toward one of the rain-streaked windows, and he had seen a face pressed to the glass. The face had been blurred and shadowy, but it definitely had been there. And then, a second later, it was gone.

  The professor was on his feet in a second, and he dashed to the window. Bravely he threw up the sash and peered out, but all he saw was darkness, wind, and rain. "Blast!" he roared, as he slammed the sash down. "There was somebody out there! Someone snooping about the estate. I'm going to go out there and give him a piece of my mind!"

  The boys were alarmed. If there was a man out there, he might have a gun. What would the professor do?

  The professor glanced quickly at the boys, and he read their thoughts. "Oh, don't be such scaredy-cats!" he said. "It's not Machine Gun Kelly, it's just some local dimwit who thinks it's fun to peer in people's windows. I'll be back in a jiffy."

  And with that the professor snatched his flashlight up off the library table and ran out into the hall. The boys followed him, and soon all three were tramping across the loudly squealing boards of the front porch. They clattered down the porch steps and ran across the slippery wet flagstone walk to the muddy driveway where the old Pontiac sat. Wildly the professor waved his flashlight around, and he shouted some rather unpleasant names into the darkness. But if there had been anyone there, he was gone now.

  "Miserable clot!" growled the professor. "I would have enjoyed giving him a good talking-to. Oh, well! It's good riddance I sup—"

  The professor's voice died. He had been waving his flashlight around as he talked, and the long pale beam had swept across the front of Perry's tomb. What he saw made him stop and stare: the two wrought-iron gates on the front of the tomb were hanging open.

  For about half a minute the professor just stood and looked. Then, with the boys close behind him, he marched forward till he stood before the gloomy little stone house. On the walk at the foot of the stairs lay the chain that had fastened the gates. Picking it up with a muttered curse, the professor trotted up the steps of the tomb and examined the bronze inner doors.

  "Merciful heavens! This is worse than I thought!" he muttered. "The doors are ajar! Now, who on earth . . ."

  The professor shoved one door open and quickly played the beam of his light around. The coffin was in its place, and everything seemed the way it should be. With a sudden angry jerk the professor pulled the doors shut and twisted the handle that latched them. He closed the iron gates and loosely fastened them with the iron chain, and then he began to stalk grimly back to the house. The boys could not see the expression on his face, but they knew he was shaken and upset.

  CHAPTER THREE

  That night the professor and the boys slept on the floor of the study. While the rain rattled on
the window-panes, they lay snug in their sleeping bags and tried to forget about the scary thing that had happened earlier that evening. The professor did not get much sleep—he lay awake most of the night listening to the rain and hoping that he would not see any more ghostly faces. Around five in the morning he gave up trying to sleep and went out to the wide front porch, where he sat smoking cigarettes till dawn. When they woke up, Fergie and Johnny washed up in the kitchen sink and helped the professor make breakfast on the old black iron gas range. The boys were in a cheerful mood, and they were itching to explore the crumbling, run-down estate. The professor stayed moody for most of the morning, because he was convinced that he had seen his dead brother's ghost. Later, though, he began to cheer up. A repair-man arrived and went to the basement to fix the broken oil burner, and this was definitely a step in the right direction. As he sat in the sunlit kitchen, sipping coffee and listening to the pinging and banging that came from below, the professor began to feel that everything might just possibly work out all right.

  After lunch Fergie and Johnny went out to play flies and grounders on the long sloping back lawn. The professor went upstairs and began to explore the many rooms of the vast echoing old mansion. As he plodded along the gloomy corridors, he tried to imagine his brother living all alone in this place. "He must have been out of his ever-loving mind," said the professor to himself as he kicked at the worn hall carpet. He walked up a narrow staircase to the tower room on the third floor. At the top of the stairs was a tall, pointed doorway. The heavy black oak door hung ajar, but beyond lay darkness. How very odd, thought the professor as he stepped into the room. He fumbled for the light switch, and the bare bulb in the ceiling fixture came on. Now the professor understood why the room was so dark. The windows were boarded up. Quickly he looked around the small circular room—it was bare and desolate, and smelled strongly of dust. A brick fireplace was built into one wall, and above the mantel a metal disk was bolted to the wall. This was a stovepipe-hole cover. Apparently at one time there had been a woodstove in the room, and the smoke had gotten out through a pipe that ran into the fireplace's chimney. On the disk a pleasant scene of fields and trees had been painted, and it made the professor smile, because he liked old-fashioned things.

  Humming quietly, he began to poke around the room. Not really much to see, was there? Off in a far corner, beyond the fireplace, was a closet door. He opened it, half hoping that a body would fall out. But all he saw were some old warped golf clubs and a slab of varnished wood. Reaching in, he pulled the piece of wood out and turned it over. To his surprise he saw chessboard squares! But the board was very warped, and unusable. "What on earth . . ." said the professor quietly, and he walked out into the middle of the room holding the bizarre object that he had found. Some very peculiar thoughts began to run through his mind. He remembered the first two lines of the weird poem that had been included in his dead brother's letter:

  Why a dead eye in a room with no view?

  Why pallid dwarves on a board that's not true?

  This shuttered room definitely had no view, and in his hands he was holding a chessboard that was warped— not true, in other words. But what was the dead eye? He didn't see any around, and he hoped that he never would. As for the "pallid dwarves," they ought to be chessmen, and it certainly was true that ivory chessmen were pale or pallid, but—but what? Pacing nervously back and forth, the professor tried to think, but the more he thought the more confused he got. "It's all in my mind," he grumbled, as he carried the board back to the closet and propped it up in a corner. "I've just made up something to entertain myself with, and if I'm not careful I'll drive myself batty!" Sighing, he closed the closet door and wiped his dusty hands on his trousers. He left the room and trotted down the stairs, but at the first landing he paused and peered anxiously over his shoulder at the dark doorway above him. "I wonder . . . he muttered thoughtfully. "I really wonder!"

  The professor spent the rest of the afternoon doing mindless tasks—he oiled the old hand-powered lawn mower in the garage and actually managed to shove it back and forth on the grass a few times. Then he went down to the cellar of the mansion to see how the repairman was doing, and he got there just in time to hear the oil burner roar into life. This was great, because it meant that he and his friends would not have to huddle in sleeping bags tonight—they would be able to sleep in real beds on soft mattresses, with clean sheets and pillowcases. After he had paid the repairman, the professor went out to the back lawn and sat down to watch the boys as they batted balls in the air and caught them. He sighed with contentment. Tonight they would drive back to the town of Stone Arabia and eat at Big Ed's and go to a movie. When they got back to their nice comfy warm house, life would seem better than it had for some time.

  Big Ed's burgers were as good as they had been before, and the Cornel Wilde pirate movie at the Mecca Theater was exciting, so by the time Fergie, Johnny, and the professor piled into the car and headed for home, they felt tired and happy. The car sped along dark, winding roads and finally turned into the driveway where the two tall stone gateposts loomed. As they bumped and jounced toward the mansion, the professor found that he was getting more and more nervous. He felt a sense of foreboding, as if something awful was going to happen. Normally he would have shrugged the feeling off, but some pretty uncanny things had happened since the three of them arrived at Perry's estate, and it was possible that more unpleasant surprises were on the way. Fireflies winked among the bushes, and brief flashes of heat lightning glowed above the clouds that hung over the old mansion. On they drove.

  "We're not gonna need that furnace tonight, Prof," Fergie said. "I'm sweatin' bullets, an' I guess you guys are too. You shouldn't of paid that guy to fix it. We could get through the summer without a furnace, I'll bet."

  "Oh, really?" growled the professor. "If you're such an expert on Maine weather, Byron, I would suggest that you rent yourself out to a local radio station. But I will bet you five dollars that we will have some pretty chilly nights before this summer is over. Remember, we have to stay here until . . ."

  The professor's voice died, and he jammed on the brakes. The long pale beams of the car's headlights had picked out something in the distance. Something that was wrong. At a bend in the drive a flagstone path began. It led to the door of the gloomy stone house where Peregrine Childermass lay buried. On the winding track of pale stones a shapeless dark lump lay. Silently the professor shut off the car's motor and got out. He trotted up the path, turned on his flashlight, and stooped over the object. It was a black tailcoat, the kind that people sometimes wear to weddings. With a shock the professor recognized the coat—it was the one that Perry had owned. Stooping, the professor grasped a lapel and saw the Masonic pin. Then he reached inside and found the label: Pine Tree State Tailors. Bangor, Maine. It was definitely Perry's coat—no doubt about that. Probably it was the one he had been buried in.

  With a strange look on his face the professor walked up the path, playing the beam of his flashlight before him. Fergie and Johnny followed a few steps behind. They were curious, but they were not quite as fearless as the professor was. At last the three of them stopped outside the entrance to the ornate stone tomb. There stood Perry's statue, smiling weirdly at them and pointing toward the door. But the wrought-iron gates had once again been wrenched open, and on the broad marble steps lay an open coffin. The lid lay nearby, and it was cracked and splintered, as if someone had forced it loose with a crowbar.

  "Heavenly days, McGee!" the professor whispered in an awestruck tone. "It looks as if a ghoul has been wandering around. I cannot imagine . . ." His voice trailed off as he bent over the empty coffin and touched the quilted lining with his fingers. Then, with a haunted look in his eyes, he turned back to the boys. "I'm afraid that mischief is afoot," he announced solemnly. "Mischief and dirty dealing and the Lord knows what! Who on earth would be so rotten as to steal my poor brother's corpse? Who?''

  Fergie threw a quick look at Johnny and shrugged. "Yo
u got me, Prof!" he said, folding his arms solemnly. "I used to read about body snatchers, but they were people who stole corpses so medical students could work on them. But that was in the old days."

  The professor nodded. "You're right," he said grimly. "So why was my brother's tomb violated? I really would like to know!"

  For quite some time the professor and the two boys stood there in the dark. While the crickets chirped loudly in the tall grass behind the mausoleum, they talked in whispers about grave robbers and the face at the window and whether or not the police ought to be notified. On one thing they were in complete agreement—something very strange was going on.

  With a gloomy sigh the professor glanced at the gaping door of the looted tomb.

  "Better go turn the car lights off," muttered the professor. "Ghouls or no ghouls, it's time for some shut eye. We can call the cops in the morning."

  Johnny and Fergie followed the professor back to the car. When he had shut off the headlights he led the way to the front door of the house. The lamp that burned behind the fanlight seemed very friendly to the boys, who kept glancing nervously over their shoulders to see if anyone was following them. Once they were inside, they helped the professor with the two heavy sliding bolts that secured the top and bottom of the stout oak door, and then they went upstairs to bed. The professor was still feeling pretty upset, so he went to the kitchen and played solitaire until he began to feel calmer. The ticking of the old Waterbury shelf clock and the hum of the refrigerator relaxed him. He poured himself a shot of brandy from the silver-plated pint flask he had brought with him. After downing the fiery liquid in one gulp he shut off the lights and walked up the broad staircase, humming tunelessly. But instead of going to his bedroom he went to the narrow flight of steps that led to the tower room. The professor really didn't know why he wanted to go to that eerie boarded-up chamber. He just felt a powerful urge, as if someone were shoving him from behind, making him go. With the beam of his flashlight showing the way, he stomped up the dusty steps till he stood once again before the gloomy paneled door. There was a hall light here, but when he flipped the switch, the professor got a little bluish flash and then darkness—the bulb had burned out. With a muttered curse the professor opened the door of the room, reached inside, and pushed a small black button. The overhead bulb came on, and he went on in.