Stephen (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

In the seat at my left-hand side, a waistcoated gentleman nudged me. “This isn’t in it, you know,” he declared. “I’ve only come for the afterpiece, but that’s a better show than this. Maelzel’s brought his Chess-Player.”

As the gentleman pronounced this phrase, it seemed to be typeset with its own capitalisations in the boldface font of his voice: MAELZEL’S CHESS-PLAYER. I nodded my comprehension. “A chess-master, you mean?” I asked.

“Well . . . some say it, and others suspect as much. Stay after with me, and see it yourself.”

By now the principal audience had begun to disperse, for the burning of Moscow was completed. All the peasants had been slaughtered, and – as there would be no further atrocities – the entertainment was ended. A few cognoscenti lingered for the promised afterpiece, and I placed myself in the front row as the gas-jets were relighted. I observed two stagehands packing up the wreckage of Moscow: the miniature buildings had been cleverly designed to collapse at a chosen moment, to give the illusion of destruction by fire. These effects and the dioramas were now hustled away, as from behind the velvet curtain two men trundled forth a peculiar oblong box.

The thing was set on wheels, and these of such a height that a gap of several inches transpired between the auditorium’s floor and the underside of the box. The box itself was carpentered of dark wood, three feet six inches in length, two feet four inches in depth, and two feet six inches in height. I will lay wager to those admeasurements. To be sure of them, I visually compared the proportions of the oblong box against the breadth and height of one of Maelzel’s attendants. Afterwards, I took care to pass closely by this man, comparing his stature to my own. I am five feet eight inches tall – my height has not changed since my West Point days – and so by this ruse I divined the oblong box’s dimensions. In the front of the cabinet were four cupboard panels with brass fittings: three tall vertical doors, and a long horizontal drawer beneath.

The peculiar feature of the oblong box was a large excrescence of irregular shape, rising from the cabinet’s rear portion. I could not discern this thing properly, for it was draped in a shroud of red sailcloth.

Professor Maelzel greeted the surviving remnants of the audience, and thanked us for awaiting the afterpiece. “Before we inspect the Chess-Player,” he said, “let us consider its cabinet.” He rapped the top and sides of the oblong box, proclaiming these to be made of stoutest maple. By their soundings, I believed him.

A liveried attendant brought forth a small table, placing this between the cabinet and the audience, and to one side. A single candlestick was placed on this. A second attendant was affixing six more candlesticks to the top of the Chess-Player’s cabinet: three either side, with an unlighted beeswax candle in each.

“Behold the Automaton,” said Herr Professor Maelzel. With a flourish, he whisked away the shroud.

Once more, the audience gasped. Seated on the rear portion of the oblong box was a replica of a man. This was garbed in the likeness of a Turk, sitting cross-legged, with a large turban atop his counterfeit head, and a high plume rising from the turban. The turban and plume made it difficult – intentionally, I suspect – to reckon the figure’s height, but my previous stratagem made clear that the Automaton was slightly larger than a typical man. The counterfeit Turk was dressed in a long coat of unknown cloth, in Oriental design. At its waist was a cummerbund , or sash, of some darkly-coloured fabric. It was beardless, yet the wooden face displayed thick black mustachios . Its eyes stared forth into the auditorium, lifeless and blind.

The Automaton’s gloved hands were extended. The left hand brandished a long Turkish smoking-pipe. On the topmost surface of the cabinet was a chessboard.

Two attendants seized the upper corners of the cabinet, and trundled it around so that the audience could view its hindquarters. The rear side of the Turk was somewhat more crudely fashioned than the front portions. The cabinet’s wheels, I repeat, were of sufficient diameter to raise the cabinet well clear of the floor, so there could be no suspicion of any human confederate entering or leaving the Automaton’s box by means of a trap-door underneath.

“There is naturally much curiosity,” said Herr Maelzel, “as to the clockwork mechanisms of the Automaton. These were crafted by Baron von Kempelen of Presbourg in 1769, and I have improved their design.” By now the cabinet had completed its ambulation, and once more the Turk confronted the audience. “It will be observed,” Maelzel resumed, “that both the cabinet, and the Automaton itself, are entirely filled with clockworks.”

From his swallow-tail coat, Maelzel took a ring of keys. As an attendant lighted a taper, Maelzel with much ceremony unlocked the leftmost of the cupboard’s three doors. He opened this fully. In the gaslight, and by the dint of one small candle, I beheld a mass of gears, pinions, levers and half-seen enginery. Leaving the cupboard door open, Maelzel went to the cabinet’s rear and unlocked another panel. Stooping, he held the burning candle behind the unlocked panel, so that its glowing flame penetrated entirely through the cupboard’s interior to the seated audience in front. Holding the candle quite near, Maelzel reached with his other hand into the cabinet and gripped one of the levers. He worked this back and forth, all the while propounding a lecture upon the history of the Automaton. The shifting lever in its turn rotated gears, which moved wheels, which turned pinions. I heard a clacketing noise, as the gears engaged at their tasks. I observed that the space between these mechanisms was too small to admit of any occupant much larger than a well-nourished rat.

Maelzel closed the rear panel, locked it, and came back to the front with his candle. The leftmost cupboard door beneath the Automaton was still wide open. Now Maelzel unlocked the long slender drawer at the base of the cabinet. Two attendants flung this drawer open to its full length. Within the drawer were a small green cushion, one chessboard, and four sets of chessmen: two white sets, two black. These were fixed in a framework to support them perpendicularly. I could not anticipate why so many chessmen were required for a single game.

As Maelzel continued his lecture, he gently placed the cushion beneath the left-hand elbow of the Automaton. At the same time, he removed the long tobacco-pipe from the Automaton’s left hand, and placed this pipe carefully in the drawer beneath the cabinet. “Is there any lady or gentleman here,” Maelzel asked, “who is a superlative player of chess?”

I made ready to volunteer, but the waistcoated gentleman anticipated me. “I am Mr Clarence Hall, proprietor of the Barque bookshop in Grace Street,” he announced. “I am known throughout Virginia as an honest man and a tolerable chess-gamer. Perhaps I will serve.” As he spoke, Mr Hall indicated a trinket on his watch-fob: the sign of the Freemason’s compass. “There is a term, long used in the Masonic craft, which I have lately heard applied to chess-players of superior skill,” Mr. Hall resumed. “Some of my opponents are pleased to call me a grandmaster .”

A footman collected the chessboard and two sets of chessmen: one white, one black. As Maelzel gave sign, this board and chessmen were set up in regulation manner at the table to one side, where Mr Hall took a chair. An attendant lighted the candle at this table, some slight distance from the Automaton.

Surely, in any chess-match, the two antagonists ought to sit at the same board?

The leftmost of the three cupboard doors beneath the Automaton was still wide open. Maelzel now unlocked its two brethren, throwing these wide as well. The rightmost and the central door opened into a single compartment. This contained no enginery at all, save for two steel quadrants of uncertain utility. Beneath these, in the floor of the cabinet, was a pedestal about eight inches square, and covered in dark cloth. Such a pedestal might have served as an admirable stool for a human tenant. I could see no reason for its presence in a clockwork mechanism.