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

The spectators’ murmuring grew louder.

“Those gears were only stage-props,” I continued, “to persuade us that the Automaton’s cabinet is entirely filled with machinery, leaving no space for a man,. Yet why is Mr Hall obliged to distance himself from his opponent the Automaton, with the nuisance of two separate chessboards for a single game? The answer: if the Chess-Player’s antagonist were to sit nearer the board, he would hear breathing from within the cabinet!”

The murmuring loudened, and some of the spectators began drumming their feet against the floorboards.

“Furthermore, look to the candles,” I spoke. “One candle gives sufficient light for Mr Hall to distinguish his chessmen. The Automaton’s eyes are sightless and ornamental, needing no light whatever . . . yet Herr Maelzel has set six candles by the board of his mechanical Chess-Player. That is because six candles are required to cast sufficient light so as to penetrate the thick gauze fabric of the Automaton’s waistcloth. I deduce that there is a human confederate within the Automaton. He is seated upon the small pedestal which we all observed inside the cabinet. His head is of a height within the Turk’s abdomen. And his eyes peer outward through the gauze of the Turkish sash.”

I heard the shifting of chairs in the rows behind me, as several spectators now stood, to have a better vantage of the Automaton.

I gestured for silence. “Pray compare the six candles at the Automaton’s chessboard. The four candles farthest from the Automaton burn steadily. There is no draught in this room. Yet the two candle-flames nearest the Turk are seen to flicker, as if caught in a current of air that oscillates back and forth. Only one manner of air current moves back and forth steadily: that of respiration . Good people, the porous cloth of the Chess-Player’s sash affords two functions for the human agent concealed within the Automaton: he can see through it, and he can breathe through it.”

By now, the spectators were demanding a chance to open the Automaton’s casing. Once more, I bade them remain silent while I resumed:

“The gears and pinions in the Chess-Player’s cabinet are merest stage-dressing. I will wager that among them are mirrors , casting reflections so as to make the gears and pinions inside the cabinet seem more numerous than they actually are, and so the cabinet more crowded. True, sir! You have opened all the cabinet’s doors for our inspection, yet you were careful never to open all of them at once. The cupboard’s human inhabitant must shift himself during your demonstration, so that there is always one shut door to conceal him. But I believe that some portion of your enginery is genuine, at least. Inside the Automaton, there must be an ingenious arrangement of levers, so that the human tenant can manipulate the Turk’s arm from within the cabinet. The system probably involves a counterbalance. This would explain the cross-problem that had puzzled me: the operator within your cabinet is probably right-handed, yet the Automaton favours its left hand.” I bowed again to the assemblage. “Good evening, ladies, gentlemen . . . and Automaton.”

Then I turned and strode up the corridor, and made good my departure.

As I left the Museum’s vestibule, and turned homeward for Mrs Yarrington’s rooming-house, once more the grotesque image of a large black-plumed rook swooped through my fancy, its talons arousing my brain to preserve this stark image in a stanza of verse. But the black-winged rooks of England are unknown in America. Perhaps, for the sake of my readers, some other dark-plumed bird of carrion will serve the purpose . . .

My encounter with Maelzel’s Chess-Player occurred three weeks ago. This afternoon – the sixth of January, 1836 – I was again busying myself at my desk in the Messenger’s offices at Fifteenth and Main Streets, when an apologetic messenger-boy brought me a folded length of foolscap. Opening this, it proved to be a scrawled letter. The author’s handwriting was disarrayed, his capitals and cursives elbowing each other in confusion. There was no signature. In fine, the letter had plainly been written by someone in great distress, or by some paralytic who had only the vaguemost control of his own limbs. Here is the missive:

EDGAR POE. Maelzel’s troupe have finished their engagement in Richmond, and depart on the morrow for their next booking. If you will come alone to the Monumental Church tonight, after the vesper-service, you will learn something to your advantage.

That was all. I flung the letter into a waste-paper receptacle, and resumed my duties. But the missive, and its mysteries, held hostage my curiosity. Thus, at eventide tonight, guided by a bright moon nearly full, I made my way through Richmond’s cobblestoned streets to Shockoe Hill.

The Monumental Church is octagonal, surmounted by a dome of peculiar shape and modest convexity. Within the front portico, between the Doric pillars flanking the church’s entrance, stands a white marble tablet commemorating the unfortunates who were lost in the fire of 1811. Stepping past this, I was surprised to find the door-bolt of the entranceway set ajar . . . perhaps by someone anticipating my arrival. Pushing the door open, I stepped within.

I have been here before. This was the church of my childhood. The place was dark now, yet I have been here so often and so intimately that I knew each detail of the church’s interior by embittered memory. Before me was the chancel. I knew by heart the inscription carved in gilt uncial script above the chancel-frame: GIVE EAR, O LORD.

My footsteps echoed on the tiling as I proceeded down the aisle towards the altar. Two candle-frames stood there, either side. Some few of the candles were lighted, and by their faint gleam I beheld a dim shape placed in front of the altar, like some sacrificial offering. A shape like an oblong box, surmounted by an effigied resemblance of a man.

It was the chess-player. Maelzel’s Automaton.

The unseeing eyes of the Turk were downturned, regarding me silently. On top of the cabinet, a few chessmen stood vigil on the gameboard in front of the cross-legged effigy. As I approached, I saw that the chessmen on the board were positioned for the gambit known as an endgame .

With a sudden right-angled convulsion, the Automaton’s left hand jerked sidelong, and nudged the black queen’s rook to the bishop’s file.

I responded in kind, grasping the solitary white knight, and placing this so as to endanger the Automaton’s king.

“ Echec ,” I declared.

“ You were wrong, Edgar Poe ,” spoke a muffled voice emerging from the Turk’s abdomen. “ There is no man within Maelzel’s Chess-Player .”

I kept standfast. “I have proved through rational deduction that the cabinet is fashioned to contain a human operator.”

“ Indeed. And it contains an operator, right enough. But the Chess-Player within the cabinet is no man . . . for I am no longer human .”

There came a sound of gears meshing within the oblong box. The rightmost door of the cabinet swung faintly ajar. From within the cupboard of the Automaton, a hand emerged . . . beckoning.

By candlelight, I beheld the hand of the unseen Chess-Player. There was a discrepancy of fingers, three digits being entirely absent. The remaining thumb and forefinger were scarred and fractured, bent into appendages more nearly resembling claws than any human flesh.

“ I was a chess-gamer once, of no little ability ,” harshed a voice within the cabinet. The unseen speaker’s voice, like his hand, seemed defective and bestial. “ My father, being of respectable Maryland stock, desired for me a career at law. If I had heeded his wishes instead of my own, I would never have come to this crossing .”