He had moved queen’s rook’s pawn two squares—the automatic principle which impelled these chessmen seemed to have a partiality for pawns.
It was my turn for reflection. I pressed the tobacco down in my pipe, and thought—or tried to think—it out. Was it an hallucination, and was St. Servan the victim of hallucination too? Had I moved those pawns spontaneously, actuated by the impulse of my own free will, or hadn’t I? And what was the meaning of the little scene I had just observed? I am a tolerably strong man. It would require no slight exercise of force to compel me to move one piece when I had made up my mind that I would move another piece instead. I have been told, and I believe not altogether untruly told, that the rigidity of my right wrist resembles iron. I have not spent so much time in the tennis-court and fencing-room for nothing. I had tried one experiment. I thought I would try another. I made up my mind that I would move queen’s pawn two—stop me who stop can.
I felt that St. Servan in his turn was watching me. Preposterously easy though the feat appeared to be as I resolved on its performance, I was conscious of an unusual degree of cerebral excitement—a sort of feeling of do or die. But as, in spite of the feeling, I didn’t do, it was perhaps as well I didn’t die. Intending to keep complete control over my own muscles, I raised my right hand, probably to the full as cautiously as St. Servan had done. I approached the queen’s pawn. I was just about to seize the piece when that unseen grasp fastened on my wrist. I paused, with something of the feeling which induces the wrestler to pause before entering on the veritable tug of war. For one thing, I was desirous to satisfy myself as to the nature of the grasp—what it was that seemed to grasp me.
It seemed to be a hand. The fingers went over the back of my wrist, and the thumb beneath. The fingers were long and thin—it was altogether a slender hand. But it seemed to be a man’s hand, and an old man’s hand at that. The skin was tough and wrinkled, clammy and cold. On the little finger there was a ring, and on the first, about the region of the first joint, appeared to be something of the nature of a wart. I should say that it was anything but a beautiful hand, it was altogether too attenuated and clawlike, and I would have betted that it was yellow with age.
At first the pressure was slight, almost as slight as the touch of a baby’s hand, with a gentle inclination to one side. But as I kept my own hand firm, stiff, resolved upon my own particular move, with, as it were, a sudden snap, the pressure tightened and, not a little to my discomfiture, I felt my wrist held as in an iron vice. Then, as it must have seemed to St. Servan, who, I was aware, was still keenly watching me, I began to struggle with my own hand. The spectacle might have been fun to him, but the reality was, at that moment, anything but fun to me. I was dragged to one side. Another hand was fastened upon mine. My fingers were forced open—I had tightly clenched my fist to enable me better to resist—my wrist was forced down, my fingers were closed upon a piece, I was compelled to move it forward, my fingers were unfastened to replace the piece upon the board. The move completed, the unseen grasp instantly relaxed, and I was free, or appeared to be free, again to call my hand my own.
I had moved queen’s rook’s pawn two squares. This may seem comical enough to read about, but it was anything but comical to feel. When the thing was done I stared at St. Servan, and St. Servan stared at me. We stared at each other, I suppose a good long minute, then I broke the pause.
“Anything the matter?” I inquired. He put up his hand and curled his moustache, and, if I may say so, he curled his lip as well. “Do you notice anything odd about—about the game?” As I spoke about the game I motioned my hand towards my brand-new set of chessmen. He looked at me with hard suspicious eyes.
“Is it a trick of yours?” he asked.
“Is what a trick of mine?”
“If you do not know, then how should I?”
I drew a whiff or two from my pipe, looking at him keenly all the time, then signed towards the board with my hand.
“It’s your move,” I said.
He merely inclined his head. There was a momentary pause. When he stretched out his hand he suddenly snatched it back again, and half started from his seat with a stifled execration.
“Did you feel anything upon your wrist?” I asked.
“Mon Dieu! It is not what I feel—see that!”
He was eyeing his wrist as he spoke. He held it out under the glare of the lamp. I bent across and looked at it. For so old a man he had a phenomenally white and delicate skin—under the glare of the lamp the impressions of finger-marks were plainly visible upon his wrist. I whistled as I saw them.
“Is it a trick of yours?” he asked again.
“It is certainly no trick of mine.”
“Is there anyone in the room besides us two?”
I shrugged my shoulders and looked round. He too looked round, with something I thought not quite easy in his glance.
“Certainly no one of my acquaintance, and certainly no one who is visible to me!”
With his fair white hand—the left, not the one which had the fingermarks upon the wrist—St. Servan smoothed his huge moustache.
“Someone, or something, has compelled me—yes, from the first—to move, not as I would, but—bah! I know not how.”
“Exactly the same thing has occurred to me.”
I laughed. St. Servan glared. Evidently the humour of the thing did not occur to him, he being the sort of man who would require a surgical operation to make him see a joke. But the humorous side of the situation struck me forcibly.
“Perhaps we are favoured by the presence of a ghost—perhaps even by the ghost of M. Funichon. Perhaps, after all, he has not yet played his last game with his favourite set. He may have returned—shall we say from—where?—to try just one more set-to with us! If, my dear sir”—I waved my pipe affably, as though addressing an unseen personage—“it is really you, I beg you will reveal yourself—materialize is, I believe, the expression now in vogue—and show us the sort of ghost you are!”
Somewhat to my surprise, and considerably to my amusement, St. Servan rose from his seat and stood by the table, stiff and straight as a scaffold-pole.
“These, Monsieur, are subjects on which one does not jest.”
“Do you, then, believe in ghosts?” I knew he was a superstitious man—witness his fidelity to the superstition of right divine—but this was the first inkling I had had of how far his superstition carried him.
“Believe!—In ghosts! In what, then, do you believe? I, Monsieur, am a religious man.”
“Do you believe, then, that a ghost is present with us now—the ghost, for instance, of M. Funichon?”
St. Servan paused. Then he crossed himself—actually crossed himself before my eyes. When he spoke there was a peculiar dryness in his tone.
“With your permission, Monsieur, I will retire to bed.”
There was an exasperating thing to say! There must be a large number of men in the world who would give—well, a good round sum, to light even on the trail of a ghost. And here were we in the actual presence of something—let us say apparently curious, at any rate, and here was St. Servan calmly talking about retiring to bed, without making the slightest attempt to examine the thing! It was enough to make the members of the Psychical Research Society turn in their graves. The mere suggestion fired my blood.
“I do beg, St. Servan, that you at least will finish the game.” I saw he hesitated, so I drove the nail well home. “Is it possible that you, a brave man, having given proofs of courage upon countless fields, can turn tail at what is doubtless an hallucination after all?”
“Is it that Monsieur doubts my courage?”
I knew the tone—if I was not careful I should have an affair upon my hands.
“Come, St. Servan, sit down and finish the game.”
Another momentary pause. He sat down
, and—it would not be correct to write that we finished the game, but we made another effort to go on. My pipe had gone out. I refilled and lighted it.
“You know, St. Servan, it is really nonsense to talk about ghosts.”
“It is a subject on which I never talk.”
“If something does compel us to make moves which we do not intend, it is something which is capable of a natural explanation.”
“Perhaps Monsieur will explain it, then?”
“I will! Before I’ve finished! If you only won’t turn tail and go to bed! I think it very possible, too, that the influence, whatever it is, has gone—it is quite on the cards that our imagination has played us some subtle trick. It is your move, but before you do anything just tell me what move you mean to make.”
“I will move”—he hesitated—“I will move queen’s pawn.”
He put out his hand, and, with what seemed to me hysterical suddenness, he moved king’s rook’s pawn two squares.
“So! our friend is still here then! I suppose you did not change your mind?”
There was a very peculiar look about St. Servan’s eyes.
“I did not change my mind.”
I noticed, too, that his lips were uncommonly compressed.
“It is my move now. I will move queen’s pawn. We are not done yet. When I put out my hand you grasp my wrist—and we shall see what we shall see.”
“Shall I come round to you?”
“No, stretch out across the table—now!”
I stretched out my hand; that instant he stretched out his, but spontaneous thought the action seemed to be, another, an unseen hand, had fastened on my wrist He observed it too.
“There appears to be another hand between yours and mine.”
“I know there is.”
Before I had the words well out my hand had been wrenched aside, my fingers unclosed, and then closed, then unclosed again, and I had moved king’s rook’s pawn two squares. St. Servan and I sat staring at each other—for my part I felt a little bewildered.
“This is very curious! Very curious indeed! But before we say anything about it we will try another little experiment, if you don’t mind. I will come over to you.” I went over to him. “Let me grasp your wrist with both my hands.” I grasped it, as firmly as I could, as it lay upon his knee. “Now try to move queen’s pawn.”
He began to raise his hand, I holding on to his wrist with all my strength. Hardly had he raised it to the level of the table when two unseen hands, grasping mine, tore them away as though my strength were of no account I saw him give a sort of shudder—he had moved queen’s bishop’s pawn two squares.
“This is a devil of a ghost!” I said.
St. Servan said nothing. But he crossed himself, not once, but half a dozen times.
“There is still one little experiment that I would wish to make.”
St. Servan shook his head.
“Not I!” he said.
“Ah but, my friend, this is an experiment which I can make without your aid. I simply want to know if there is nothing tangible about our unseen visitor except his hands. It is my move.” I returned to my side of the table. I again addressed myself, as it were, to an unseen auditor. “My good ghost, my good M. Funichon—if it is you—you are at liberty to do as you desire with my hand.”
I held it out. It instantly was grasped. With my left hand I made several passes in the air up and down, behind and before, in every direction so far as I could. It met with no resistance. There seemed to be nothing tangible but those invisible fingers which grasped my wrist—and I had moved queen’s bishop’s pawn two squares.
St. Servan rose from his seat.
“It is enough. Indeed it is too much. This ribaldry must cease. It had been better had Monsieur permitted me to retire to bed.”
“Then you are sure it is a ghost—the ghost of M. Funichon, we’ll say?”
“This time Monsieur must permit me to wish him a good night’s rest.” He bestowed on me, as his manner was, a stiff inclination of the head, which would have led a stranger to suppose that we had met each other for the first time ten minutes ago, instead of being the acquaintances of twelve good years. He moved across the room.
“St. Servan, one moment before you go! You are surely not going to leave a man alone at the post of peril?”
“It were better that Monsieur should come too.”
“Half a second, and I will. I have only one remark to make, and that is to the ghost.”
I rose from my seat. St. Servan made a half-movement towards the door, then changed his mind and remained quite still.
“If there is any other person with us in the room, may I ask that person to let us hear his voice, or hers? Just to speak one word.”
Not a sound.
“It is possible—I am not acquainted with the laws which govern—eh—ghosts that the faculty of speech is denied to them. If that be so, might I ask for the favour of a sign—for instance, move a piece while my friend and I are standing where we are?”
Not a sign; not a chessman moved.
“Then M. Funichon, if it indeed be you, and you are incapable of speech, or even of moving a piece of your own accord, and are only able to spoil our game, I beg to inform you that you are an exceedingly ill-mannered and foolish person, and had far better have stayed away.”
As I said this I was conscious of a current of cold air before my face, as though a swiftly moving hand had shaved my cheek.
“By Jove, St. Servan, something has happened at last. I believe our friend the ghost has tried to box my ears!”
St. Servan’s reply came quietly stern.
“I think it were better that Monsieur came with me.”
For some reason St. Servan’s almost contemptuous coldness fired my blood. I became suddenly enraged.
“I shall do nothing of the kind! Do you think I am going to be fooled by a trumpery conjuring trick which would disgrace a shilling stance? Driven to bed at this time of day by a ghost! And such a ghost! If it were something like a ghost one wouldn’t mind; but a fool of a ghost like this!”
Even as the words passed my lips I felt the touch of fingers against my throat. The touch increased my rage. I snatched at them, only to find that there was nothing there.
“Damn you!” I cried. “Funichon, you old fool, do you think that you can frighten me? You see those chessmen; they are mine, bought and paid for with my money—you dare to try and prevent me doing with them exactly as I please.”
Again the touch against my throat. It made my rage the more. “As I live, I will smash them all to pieces, and grind them to powder beneath my heel.”
My passion was ridiculous—childish even. But then the circumstances were exasperating—unusually so, one might plead. I was standing three or four feet from the table. I dashed forward. As I did so a hand was fastened oh my throat. Instantly it was joined by another. They gripped me tightly. They maddened me. With a madman’s fury I still pressed forward. I might as well have fought with fate. They clutched me as with bands of steel, and flung me to the ground.
Chapter III
When I recovered consciousness I found St. Servan bending over me.
“What is the matter?” I inquired, when I found that I was lying on the floor.
“I think you must have fainted.”
“Fainted! I never did such a thing in my life. It must have been a curious kind of faint, I think.”
“It was a curious kind of faint.”
With his assistance I staggered to my feet. I felt bewildered. I glanced round. There were the chessmen still upon the board, the hanging lamp above. I tried to speak. I seemed to have lost the use of my tongue. In silence he helped me to the door. He half led, half carried me—for I seemed to have lost the use of my
feet as well as that of my tongue—to my bedroom. He even assisted me to undress, never leaving me till I was between the sheets. All the time not a word was spoken. When he went I believe he took the key outside and locked the door.
That was a night of dreams. I know not if I was awake or sleeping, but all sorts of strange things presented themselves to my mental eye. I could not shut them from my sight. One figure was prominent in all I saw—the figure of a man. I knew, or thought I knew, that it was M. Funichon. He was a lean old man, and what I noticed chiefly were his hands. Such ugly hands! In some fantastical way I seemed to be contending with them all through the night.
And yet in the morning when I woke—for I did wake up, and that from as sweet refreshing sleep as one might wish to have—it was all gone. It was bright day. The sun was shining into the great, ill-furnished room. As I got out of bed and began to dress, the humorous side of the thing had returned to me again. The idea of there being anything supernatural about a set of ivory chessmen appeared to me to be extremely funny.
I found St. Servan had gone out. It was actually half-past ten! His table d’hôte at the Hôtel de Bretagne was at eleven, and before he breakfasted he always took a petit verre at the club. If he had locked the door overnight he had not forgotten to unlock it before he started. I went into the rambling, barnlike room which served us for a salon. The chessmen had disappeared. Probably St. Servan had put them away—I wondered if the ghost had interfered with him. I laughed to myself as I went out—fancy St. Servan contending with a ghost.
The proprietor of the Hôtel de Bretagne is Legitimist, so all the aristocrats go there—of course, St. Servan with the rest. Presumably the landlord’s politics is the point, to his cooking they are apparently indifferent—I never knew a worse table in my life! The landlord of the Hôtel de l’Europe may be a Communist for all I care—his cooking is first-rate, so I go there. I went there that morning. After I had breakfasted I strolled off towards the Grande Rue, to M. Bobineau.
The Sixth Ghost Story Megapack Page 31
