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

Maelzel’s attendants now whirled the Automaton around once more, so that again its rear portions were afforded to us. All three of the front cupboard doors were still open. Maelzel unlocked another panel at the rear – not the one he had previously opened, which was now locked – and again we had a view of unknown gears and pinions. Again, the business with the candle was repeated, so that the light of the flame pierced the entire cabinet from front to back – or the other way, as the cabinet was now reversed – and again the light of the candle gave token that there was no hiding-space within for even a modest homunculus.

The wooden figure of the Turk was slightly larger than man-sized. Maelzel now lifted the Turk’s coat, to reveal the replication’s nether portions. A door about ten inches square was in the loins of the figure, and a smaller door in the left thigh. I perceived that the Turk’s cummerbund was not genuine, for it did not truly encircle the Automaton’s waist in the manner of such garments. The edges of the sash terminated at either side of the figure, so that the Turk’s cummerbund was merely a false ornamentation on the front half of the likeness.

Unlocking and opening the doors within the Automaton, Professor Maelzel permitted the spectators to view what lurked within. I beheld a network of cogs, mainsprings, and enginery: all dormant and still. Maelzel rapped the upper portions of the figure, producing a solid heavy sounding with no rumours of hollowness.

Maelzel now closed and locked all the apertures, and the cabinet was trundled once more to its previous position, with the eyes of the Turk gazing outward, confronting the spectators. An attendant had set up the remaining chessmen on the board in front of the cross-legged Turk, with the black pieces facing the Automaton.

I have mentioned six candles upon the Automaton’s board. These a footman now hastened to light, with a taper. No two of these six candles were of a like height. They varied in stature by as much as twelve inches. This is unremarkable, as candles consume their wax at differing rates, and so dwindle unequally. I assumed that, in pursuit of thrift, Herr Maelzel would save the stubs of candles previously lighted, and make use of them again until their wicks were spent.

With another flourish, Maelzel inserted one of his keys into an aperture in the left side of the cabinet: the Automaton’s right side. I heard the snicketing sound of a mainspring winding taut within the clockwork engine.

Professor Maelzel withdrew the key, and bowed: “Let the chess-match begin.”

Mr Hall, playing white, made the first move: a simple pawn’s gambit. He was seated in profile, so that the spectators had a fair view of both the white and black positions at his chessboard. Professor Maelzel thanked him, then strode to the cabinet of the Automaton. Swiftly, Maelzel grasped the corresponding white pawn on the Automaton’s chessboard, and copied Hall’s move.

I saw no profit in this duplication. Surely it made more thrift for the machine and its antagonist to do battle across opposite ranks of the same chessboard. True, by seating Mr Hall to one side, Maelzel assured the spectators an unchallenged view of the Automaton and its chess pieces. And yet – by means of mirrors, during his makeshift conflagration of Moscow – Maelzel had already displayed his ingenuity in amplifying and translocating flames so that they burnt at one position in space while being perceived entirely elsewhere. Could not a man of such genius likewise project his Automaton’s progress so that the chess-match was visible from all quarters of the room?

As I thought of this, there was a sharp intake of breath from several spectators.

The Automaton raised its left arm. The limb moved upward, forward, downward, jerking in stiff right-angled gesticulations. The Automaton’s head moved slightly, the plumed turban shifting. The eyes rolled, in grotesque parody of human eyes.

The Automaton’s hand lifted the black queen’s pawn, advanced it slightly, and set it down in the square of the fourth rank. Then, releasing its prize, the Automaton’s arm reversed its movements precisely, once more resting its elbow on the cushion.

Maelzel declaimed to the assemblage this movement of the queen’s pawn, while he crossed to Mr Hall’s board and advanced a black chessman in like fashion.

So the chess-match proceeded, each antagonist’s move in duplicate.

The match, in fine, was a superior one: Mr Hall was an excellent gamer, yet the Automaton surpassed him. Several white chessmen were rapidly captured. The Automaton achieved this by lowering a black piece into the square already occupied by a white piece, clumsily knocking it askew. An attendant confiscated the taken piece. On the rarer occasions when Mr Hall captured a black piece, Maelzel removed its counterpart from the Automaton’s display.

There was silence in the hall, utmost silence, as the game was prosecuted: this stillness being broken only by the audience’s occasional cries of admiration at a clever gambit, or dismay at an ill-chosen manoeuvre.

The turbaned head of the Automaton shifted at intervals, yet these movements appeared to be random. More disconcerting were the mechanical eyes. The Turk was just above man-sized, and his eyes were slightly enlarged beyond that proportion, so they were perhaps twice as large as a living man’s organs of sight. They appeared to be sightless, and ornamental, for the eyes of the Automaton never once bent towards the chessboard. Yet they moved. The eyelids blinked, the eyes shifted sidelong as if weighted with the guilt of unknown crimes. At the eleventh move, when Mr Hall made an especially maladroit gambit, the Automaton’s eyes positively rolled in their sockets, arousing laughter from the spectators.

On the thirteenth move, the Automaton responded to Mr Hall’s en passant with a bold assault by the black queen’s rook. At this juncture, the Automaton’s right hand – formerly idle – rapped the top of the cabinet, and the Automaton’s jaws opened.

“ Echec ,” said a voice within the Automaton’s bosom.

Several spectators gasped as the machine spoke. I was less impressed. It is easy enough, by means of bellows, to equip a mechanism so as to voice a bird’s call or a spoken word. One is put in mind of cuckoo-clocks. Indeed, the cuckoo seemed to be the appropriate bird flying over these proceedings, although there were clearly more than a few gulls within the premises as well. I prolonged this theme of birds by observing that the Automaton had played a black rook . Twenty years ago, when my stepfather brought me to England to be schooled at Stoke Newington, I learnt that the word “rook” signifies not merely a chessman and a black-plumed bird. It is also the London criminals’ cant-word meaning to cheat . . .

I arose from my chair, and stepped into the avenue between the seats.

“I have unriddled this mystery,” I said loudly. “The game is over, and it ends in a fool’s mate. Maelzel’s Automaton is a fraud.”

There was a huzzbuzz, as the heads of spectators turned to confront my intrusion. Even the blind eyes of the Automaton seemed to swivel in their sockets, to behold me.

Herr Maelzel gestured for silence. “Who are you, sir?” he asked me.

“I am Edgar Poe, chief reviewer for the Southern Literary Messenger ,” I said, making so bold as to offer a half-bow. I fancied I saw the Automaton start in surprise as I rendered my name.

“I do not know you, Mr Poe,” ventured Maelzel.

“The Automaton is a fraud whether you know me or not,” I went on. “Five months ago, I might have hailed your clockwork Chess-Player as the greatest hoax of the century. But you have been outdistanced and out-hoaxed this past August by the New York Sun’s series of articles about bat-winged beaver-men allegedly observed upon the surface of the Moon. That hoax was exposed in September, and now your own diddling will be unhoaxed as well.” I held up one hand to silence the clamouring spectators while I confronted Maelzel. “I have unmasked your Chess-Player by means of observation and deduction. I ask everyone here to recall your demonstration, when you opened the Chess-Player’s cabinet and moved the levers with your hand. There was a loud clacking noise, as we saw the gears engaged. Yet the Automaton has been waging chess-moves for several minutes now, and never once in that time have we heard the sound of those gears engaging! Further, we all heard you winding a mainspring within the Turk . . . yet there has been no consequent sound of an escapement, the tell-tale tick-tick-tick as the mainspring uncoils. I will wager that your Chess-Player’s cupboard contains a ratchet, to counterfeit the sound of a mainspring turning, without an escapement.”