SteampubkPrime

by Mike Ashley

  A little Frenchman was the first to notice Dryden’s entrance. He leapt to his feet and waved his hand towards him. “Tiens, Dryden!” He exclaimed; “voila notre sauveur.” The babble of the room stopped at the words, and all, faces turned to the door. The old man stood there, slowly furling his umbrella and looked enquiringly round. Then he spoke slowly.

  “You will pardon me, gentlemen, if I do not quite understand. Why saviour, and of what?”

  “Why, our saviour! We’re going to try for Greet’s dollars,” drawled a voice from the comer. “You’re the only man for us. We’ll put up the chips.”

  “Once more I am at a loss,” said Mr. Dryden; “Mr. Laroche and Mr. Sutherland, you have puzzled me. I presume you are talking about the only Greet that interests us. What new thing has he or his Automaton done?”

  Twenty members shouted the explanation, and, half smothered in newspapers, Mr. Dryden was forced into a chair, and formally asked if he would act as representative of the club and take up Mr. Greet’s challenge.

  “It has beaten all the rest of us,” said the President sadly, “but surely in the first chess association in Europe there must be one player who can get the better of that infernal machine. There shall be one, and you shall be that one, Dryden. You can take a line through this. I know by exactly how much you are my master, and that thing showed about the same superiority over me. So you’ll start about square. This is the scheme we’ve arranged. The club finds all the money if you lose. If you win, you take half and we pocket the rest. That’s fair enough, is it not?”

  Mr. Dryden did not take long to decide. However sure he felt that he was no match for the mysterious intelligence that guided the hand of the Automaton, the temptation of the money, and his own straitened condition left only one course possible to him.

  “I accept,” he said; “make all arrangements in my name, and let me know time and place and anything else that may be necessary. For these three weeks I will shut myself up. If there is anything about the game that I do not already know, perhaps in this absolute seclusion I may wring it from my brain. I suppose that I shall see you all, or most of you, on the appointed day. Au revoir, gentlemen. I thank you very much for the honor you have done me.”

  The members rose in a body, a motley crowd of all nations, each one greatly excited, and congratulations in every tongue smote on the back of Mr. Dryden’s head, as, shielded by the President, he walked sedately down the staircase.

  Left to himself, he set out in the direction of Charing Cross, for he entertained the notion of paying a visit to an old friend in the country. This gentleman, the Rev. Henry Druce, was incumbent of a village cure in Kent, and though his name was unknown to the public, he enjoyed among the professors of chess a high reputation as a master of the game. In the seclusion of Mr. Druce’s peaceful vicarage Mr. Dryden felt sure that he would find rest for his worried brain, and valuable suggestions for the work that he was to do.

  The train wandered happily out of the suburbs into the pretty county of Kent, and after many tiresome waits drew up at last at a tiny wayside station, all white in a gorgeous setting of many-colored flowers. The glare of the sun’s rays that beat back from the glowing platform into Mr. Dryden’s tired eyes staggered him for a moment, as he stepped out of the gloom of the carriage. The hot quivering atmosphere was very distinct to the eye, like the hot-air waves that one sees above a shaded lamp. The country was full of dull, murmuring noises, and among them the voices of the porters and the rumble of the train seemed indefinite and unreal.

  Mr. Dryden was unable at once to assimilate himself to the new surroundings, and long after the train had banged over the points and glided away into the haze he still stood looking vaguely over the broad fields, scattered with lazy cattle, that lay against the railway on the other side. He was startled into consciousness by a voice asking if he wished to travel on the omnibus that was about to start for the village. Following the man to where, in the dusty road, a boy in a big straw hat was lazily flicking the flies from the two sleepy horses that stood dejectedly in front of the little yellow omnibus, he was presently jolting into view of the scattered houses of the hamlet. The vicarage was an old-world house in an old-world garden, and as Mr. Dryden walked up the white-flagged path to the porch, he was afforded a view of Mr. Druce, comfortably disposed for his afternoon nap in a long chair by the window. The vicar was, however, delighted at the intrusion, and very excited by Mr. Dryden’s tale of Greet’s challenge and his own acceptance, They talked for a while about the mysterious figure and its inexplicable victories, till suddenly Mr. Druce, who throughout the conversation had been somewhat hesitating and shy of manner, turned to his visitor and said:

  “It appears to me that in London you have ceased in a measure to enquire into the reason for these wonders. You are beginning to accept the victories of the Automaton as inevitable, and to believe, I am amazed to find, that the thing is in reality an almost supernatural triumph of science. Now surely, Dryden, you cannot think that that steel hand is guided by any other than a human intelligence. It is absurd; you might just as well believe in magic and the black arts. I have not seen it, but I read, and am told, that facility is given to the audience for examination; that it is opened, and is apparently empty of aught save machinery; that it is detached from the stage or its chair; in fact, that its secret is so clever that every one has been baffled. Now it is quite plain to me that somewhere, either inside it, or close at hand, is a man, possibly unknown to us all, but obviously a chess player of extraordinary brilliance, who by some means or other plays the Automaton’s game. That is quite certain. The problem is, therefore, who is the man? The names and the movements of all the great players are known to us through the papers. I can tell you in a minute where is Iflinski, or Le Jeune, or Moore. Besides, there are not half-a-dozen men in the world who could have played the games so far recorded. Now I have a theory. I am a good Christian, I believe, both by profession and practice, and I have hesitated long in my mind before I was compelled to believe in this theory of mine. It brings me to think evil of a man who has been my friend and were I not so certain, Dryden, I would never breathe it to a soul. You are the first to hear. Listen. Of course, I long ago gave up the supposition of a wonderful scientific discovery, or anything of that sort. Since then I have simply been trying to find out the man. I have compared the games played by Mr. Greet’s figure with those played by most at the greater living masters, and I have found in one case a striking similarity. Even then I should not have spoken had not coincidence aided me still further; had not, in fact, my friendship for the man I suspect enabled me to follow his movements and be privy of his disappearances. It is — and I am grieved that he should have lent himself to such a deception — Murray.”

  Mr. Dryden gave a gasp of astonishment.

  “Murray!” He said, “Philip Murray of the Queen’s Library, the bibliophile, the old white-haired gentleman who comes sometimes to the club and plays a game or two; I can hardly believe it, Druce.”

  “It was hard for me to believe it myself,” said Mr. Druce, “and I have only told you half of what I know. In my mind the truth of the thing admits of no doubt. I will tell you more of my proofs.”

  “But the man couldn’t have done it.” Broke in Mr. Dryden. “He couldn’t have beaten these men, he couldn’t have played the games. I’ve seen him playing in the club, he is no extraordinary player. No, Druce, find some one else for the spirit of the Automaton.”

  “Don’t be so impatient, and don’t be led astray by the idea of Murray’s incapacity,” said Mr. Druce. “You don’t know him properly, neither you nor anyone else at the club; but I do. He cares nothing for notoriety. Chess is his recreation, not his business; but I can tell you, Dryden — and many hundreds of games have Murray and I played together — that he is the first master of the game in England. Enough for his ability. Listen to these facts. How long ago is it that the Automaton was first exhibited in Prague? Eight months exactly. At that time Murray disappe
ared from England and was absent for six months, precisely the length of time that Greet was taking his figure through the big cities of Europe. The fact alone of his disappearance may be only a coincidence, but look at this, my sister Lizzie’s husband is at the Embassy in Vienna. She saw Murray three times in the streets during the time that the Automaton was there. She mentioned the fact in a letter to me, because, she said, he seemed to avoid her in so strange a manner. Tom Rollit, writing from Antwerp, told me how be met Murray in a cafe, and how constrained he seemed. The day was the second day after Greet and his figure had begun their matches in that city. I didn’t pay much attention to this at the time, but after the Automaton had come to London, and I had repeatedly called on Murray to have a chat about the thing, and been as often told that he was away, I became suspicious. He is a man who has all his life been most reluctant to leave his home, and after the first time that in my study of the games I had noticed a resemblance between Murray’s play and that of the Automaton, my suspicion; became very strong. It was then that I remembered his several journeys to Europe just before his long absence. He has always professed an extra distaste for continental travel. I remember too, how I had met Edouard Roulain, the man who has had such an extraordinary success in Berlin as a prestidigitateur, in the hall of Murray’s house on the occasion of one of my visits. When I asked him about the man — for I should like to have met him — he changed the subject at once and somewhat rudely. Again — it is really wonderful how so much circumstantial evidence has come my way — he was in Manchester when the Automaton was there. I was calling, and I could not help noticing that the maid who showed me to the drawing room carried a letter addressed in his handwriting, that bore the postmark of that town. Mrs. Murray put the letter quickly in her pocket, and when I asked her where her husband was, she told me that he had gone to Edinburgh about a book. You must agree with me, Dryden, that that is enough. Well, I’ve got one last proof, the most conclusive of all. When they went to Birmingham, I followed and took a room that commanded a view of the stage door of the hall. All day long I sat in that window, concealed by the curtains, and every day, sometimes only just before the show, sometimes two or three times during the day, I saw a man, heavily bearded and with spectacles, walk into the hall, With Murray’s walk. Once I saw him with Greet, but generally he was alone. That man was Murray I have no doubt at all. He is the brain of the Automaton. Philip Murray has worked one of the biggest deceptions on the world that has ever been conceived, and I doubt not he has nicely feathered his own nest in the working of it. What do you think of my story?”

  “I own that I am fairly astounded,” said Mr. Dryden, “and I cannot think how it is done. I tell you I have looked inside the thing, from both sides, and it’s full of wheels. I’ve pushed it about the stage; and I’ve sat there during the play and never taken my eyes off it.”

  “Did Greet let you put your hand inside and touch the machinery,” said Mr. Druce.

  “Well, I never thought of doing that, nor, when I come to think of it, did anyone else; but I saw wheels, and cogs and springs, as distinctly as I see you.”

  “That can be arranged by an elaborate system of mirrors, some improvement on the Pepper’s Ghost idea. Edouard Roulain is quite clever enough to fool anyone by a trick of that sort. It’s my belief that Murray gets inside it; I don’t think it could be worked by any other means. I expect that the plot was conceived somewhat after this fashion. Edouard Roulain, in the course of his investigations, stumbled on a really exceptionally brilliant idea for an optical delusion. It then occurred to him that this idea might be put to more profitable use than mere exhibition. How he hit on the notion of the chess-playing Automaton, I can’t think. He has been a friend of Murray’s for some time, I found that out; and very likely he told Murray of his find and asked for suggestions. Murray may have got it from some old book, or perhaps thought it out himself. Wait a minute though; I never told you how I proved Roulain’s connection with the affair. When the Automaton was in London, I met him repeatedly about the town; but that was before I was so sure about Murray, and didn’t think much of it. He had grown a moustache, but I recognized him easily. I daresay he’s gone now, he wasn’t in Birmingham.”

  “What about Greet?” Said Mr. Dryden.

  “Oh, he is only a figurehead; perhaps he doesn’t even know the secret. He has been an operatic manager all over Europe and the States; he took Roulain to New York when he made his first great success there. He is about the best business manager they could have.”

  “Well, I suppose I must grant you that Murray does work it — exactly how he does it doesn’t matter much. What I want to think out is how does this knowledge help me? Suppose that you or I give the thing away, what do we gain? Have you thought of doing it yourself?”

  No, I have not. To tell you the truth, I have rather been enjoying the joke, and were it not for my orders, I should have in time thrown down the gauntlet myself. If there is one man in England who knows Murray’s play, it is myself, and I think I might have got the better of him. The feeling of mystery that has surrounded the Automaton has helped him immensely; he would not have had so complete and easy a success if his opponents had not been frightened out of their best game. I could see that by studying the records of the play. As it is, I shall do nothing; but if this knowledge will be any help to you in your game, you are most heartily welcome to it. Believe me, that I shall so far escape from my seclusion as to be a most interested spectator of the match at Bristol.”

  “I am immensely obliged to you, old friend,” said Dryden, “I will make it no secret from you that I am in a very bad way for money. A totally unlooked for misfortune has deprived me of the greater part of my regular income, and the interest that has followed this Automaton has caused several of the important tournaments, that I should have made money out of, to be abandoned. If I can win this match, I get £1,000, which will set me straight, and from my victory I shall gain a reputation that will put me in the way of much future gain. If I were to write a book on chess; it would enormously enhance its sale.”

  “I am sorry to hear of your distress,” said Mr. Druce, “which I had never suspected, and I am the more glad that I may be of a little use to you. You will stop to dinner, of course, and before you go I will give you the records of a great many of Murray’s games. He has had enough of his mysterious triumph, and it is quite time the joke came to an end.”

  Dinner was quiet and pleasant, and though the presence of Charles Cunliffe, the curate, who was fresh from Magdalen, and cared for nothing except stamped leather bindings and the fine embroidery of a cope, excluded chess from the conversation, the three men found the subject of continental travel a convenient exchange for opinions. Mr. Cunliffe had in undergraduate days paid several visits to Boulogne, and held elaborate ideas on the subject of racial distinctions.

  Mr. Dryden bade farewell to the two clergymen in the little station, now cool and pleasant in the moonlight, and during the seventy minutes of his journey to Charing Cross, examined feverishly the bundle of papers that Mr. Druce had given him. For the next week he kept himself strictly from the world and held unceasingly to his task of investigating Mr. Murray’s methods. At the end of that time there came to him the conviction that he had met his master. As before he had known that the uncanny spirit of the Automaton would surely beat him, so now he realized with a pain — all the worse because it swept away the hopes that Mr. Druce’s story had inspired — that in the brain of the little old Scotch librarian was the same power, none the less real now that it had lost its odor of mystery.

  Meanwhile his creditors had become more instant in their demands, and poor Mr. Dryden, crushed with despondency and overwhelmed with debt, conceived a hatred towards the automatic figure and its inmate that increased in bitterness as each day brought him nearer to the contest that he felt certain would prove his Waterloo.

  For the three weeks he kept entirely to his own house and held no communication with the outside world, except for
a short correspondence with the President of the club on the matter of the challenge, and the arrangements for day and hour. He received one short letter from Mr. Druce, wishing him good fortune and assuring him that he would be among the audience to watch the downfall of the Automaton.

  Whatever mistrust of his powers he might entertain, it was not his own money that he would sacrifice by abandoning the match, and in the interests of the club he was bound to go through with the affair.

  Four days before the match he came to Bristol and took apartments in a house in the Hot-wells that faced the river. The coming match had aroused extreme interest in the town, and crowds were continually assembled about the station at Temple Mead, in hope of a prior view of the Automaton.

  On the day after his arrival he sat for many hours at the window, watching the tall spars of the ships show stark against the cliffs as the vessels were towed to and from the city. The chatter of the riverside loafers that reached his ears treated always of the Automaton, and the improbable speculations that were hazarded brought a weary smile to his face. About sunset he left the house, and, following a winding path, climbed the edge of the gorge, coming out upon the Clifton Down. For a little while he sat there, watching the silent beauty of the scene. The dying sun had lent a greater glory to the city that sloped from the sides of its seven hills to the hollow beneath him, and the Avon traced a line of rosy flame through the gorge, till it lost itself at last in a forest of masts and the dull smoke-cloud of the furnaces. Then the sun seemed to grow in size and rush quicker to its bed. For a moment it hung over the Somersetshire woods, firing every tree into a glory of a moment. Then it was suddenly gone, and the white coolness of evening came directly over the country and the town. The majesty of hill, champaign and valley, lent an infinite composure to the trouble of Mr. Dryden’s thoughts, and presently he began to take the road to the city, purposing a cheerful dinner at some inn. A merry party of travellers filled the coffee-room at the “Greyhound” in Broad Mead, and their amusing conversation about the Automaton induced Mr. Dryden to disclose his identity. He became the center and hero of the party, and two hours passed with a pleasant speed.