KING'S PAWN TO KNIGHT'S
Arnold Frean came over the next morning in his car, and was out with
Brenda Gelette until noon. I viewed the incident with misgiving and
dislike, though, of course, it was no earthly business of mine. Perhaps
for that very reason I made it my business. Anyway, Frean wasn't the
kind that does a girl any good.
My acquaintance with him was of the briefest, but it had left a
distinct and unpleasant impression. He was one of the gay crowd I had
picked up with after coming into my Uncle Peter's money, his family was
a wealthy New York one, and he the only worthless member in it. That
he grafted generally I didn't mind, but when he repaid several loans I
made him by attempting to cheat at dummy bridge, I grew hot.
"Look here," I said, "if you want money, you've only to ask me, but
I object to being robbed, and especially in such a clumsy fashion. A
blind man could have seen you stack that deck. I'm not a fool, Frean,
except when I want to be."
We were alone in my rooms at the time, the lie was passed, and, after a
mild passage at arms, he owned up to the cheating and begged me to say
nothing about it.
"The fact is, Lawton," he said, "I'm hard up. Yes, I know my governor's
rolling in money, and that I'm supposed to hold down a good job in his
Wall Street office. But we had a row, and--well, I'm hunting a new
berth. You don't know what a rotten old skinflint he is. I wouldn't
work for him at any price."
I heard later through underground channels that Arnold Frean had been
mixed up in a shady brokerage deal, and had only escaped jail through
his father's influence. This and an affair with a girl, also hushed
up, had capped a long series of "indiscretions," and his sorely tried
parent had at last fired him from home and business, lock, stock, and
barrel.
It was after the dummy-bridge incident that Frean gibed me into taking
my first drink, and I know now, as I suspected then, that it was his
oblique method of revenge, for he never deceived me by his apparent
contrition and affected friendship; he had tried to rough-house me,
and found it a poor business, and I knew he had a knife waiting for me
whenever he saw a chance of getting it home.
Understand that I'm not trying to shoulder him with the blame of
starting me drinking, and I bore him no ill will on that score. With
all the worst intentions in the world, he couldn't have succeeded but
for my help. He simply gauged my inherited failing better than I, and
played on my vanity and self-confidence.
I saw little enough of him after that, but I knew positively he had not
changed his life for the better, made up the row with his father, or
engaged in any legitimate business. Therefore, what he had told Varney
was a lie. The elder Frean wasn't one to publish his son's evil doings
broadcast, and, as Varney did not live in New York, it was evident he
knew nothing of what had happened--or else he knew and condoned it.
I was curious to learn more about Varney himself, but this wasn't
easy, it being the first time he had visited that part of the coast,
and therefore trades-people and neighbors' servants--the best news
bureaus--knew nothing about him. Nor could I learn anything from
the domestic staff, whose members, from Horace downward, were all
middle-aged, and not given to discussing their master or mistress.
I can't say there was any conspiracy of silence, as if there was
something to conceal.
As I was supposed to hail from Philadelphia, to have left the
employment of an acquaintance of Varney, I couldn't put any direct
questions, and nothing was volunteered. I got the impression of a loyal
and clannish band of servants, devoted to their master, and grown old
in his service, who regarded me as a new member, taken on probation,
who could not be admitted to the inner circle and the secrets of the
house until I had proved myself by faithful service. In brief, such a
domestic staff as you don't see nowadays, of the old Southern darky or
English retainer type. Yet old Varney seemed hardly the sort to inspire
this kind of loyalty and devotion; rather, I wondered he could get any
one to serve him, for I heard him speak to Horace, Mrs. Stower, and the
equally venerable housemaids, Lena and Mary, just as he spoke to me.
"Nasty old cock, that boss of yours," said Williams, the gardener, who
came twice a week. "Looks like a hop fiend. Say, what was wrong with
Jules, the other guy that was here? Too much booze?"
"So I understand."
"I thought as much. I told him what would happen if he didn't keep away
from Knight's."
"Which?" said I.
"Knight's. Oh, you're new to this part? Well, it's a road house near
the Shrewsbury. From what I seen of him, Jules would have been all
right if he'd left the booze alone. I feel real sorry for him, for he's
one of these rum hounds, I guess, that's got to quit the stuff cold or
take the count. You know there's guys like that, eh?"
"I've heard so," I said noncommittally. "It's too bad to have such a
failing."
"It ain't a failing; it's a disease," said Mr. Williams. "Jules told me
he'd been on the wagon two years, until he fell off with a bang and
began hittin' it up in Philly just before he come here. Got in with a
bad crowd, see? And stayed with 'em. I ain't got no use for a guy that
gets another guy to booze, knowin' he can't take it like a white man."
I agreed with this excellent sentiment, and that evening asked Miss
Gelette if I might have an hour or so off. She attended to all such
matters instead of Mr. Varney, who took little to do with the running
of the house.
"Certainly," she said. "Of course, Friday is your regular evening. I
suppose you wish to see about your trunk?"
"No, not exactly, ma'am."
"But don't you think you should? It's about time you did."
"The fact is, ma'am, I don't think it will ever turn up; it's lost this
time for good. I don't remember anything about it, ever getting it
expressed or put on the train." Which was the literal truth.
"I don't see how you could have lost it, Peter."
"Why, ma'am, I even lost myself!"
"Well, that's true." And she smiled. "In that case you will need to be
buying some things. Here is a week's wages," handing me two ten-dollar
bills and a five. "Now remember, Peter, your promise to me. Above all,
keep away from a place called Knight's. It has a bad name and was the
ruination of Jules."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but that's just where I'm going."
"To Knight's? And after my telling you the sort of place it is?"
"I can't help that, ma'am; I've got to go."
"You don't; nothing of the sort! However," suddenly checking herself,
"it is no affair of mine. Of course you can do what you please, go
where you like, after hours. And you're not precisely a child."
"I'm not going there to drink, ma'am."
"Oh," she said, looking mollified. "What are you going for then?"
"To see about a chess problem."
"A chess problem!"
"Yes, ma'am, I've an appointment there with a fellow I knew in
Philadelphia--I saw him this morning in Sea Bright--and he's very keen
on the game, too. He has a problem for me."
She looked at me for some time in silence. "It was honorable of you to
tell me you were going to Knight's, and it does you great credit that
you're so fond of such an intellectual pastime as chess. But I wish
this friend of yours had picked some other place to discuss problems.
It's only putting temptation in your way. However, that is your affair,
not mine. You must bear in mind that you won't have a second chance if
there is a repetition of what happened the other night. You understand?"
"Yes, ma'am. But I mean to keep my promise. If I may say so, it seems
to me that running away from a thing never did much good. I mean,
ma'am, you can't call yourself a victor simply because you've never
given the other fellow a chance to beat you."
"And in this instance the other fellow is----"
"Mr. Barleycorn, ma'am."
"Oh," she said. "Then--then that affair of the other night _wasn't_
your first experience? Come, Peter, I want the truth."
"I mean you to have it, ma'am. That's been my failing, though Mr.
Fremstad knew nothing about it. Mr. Barleycorn has floored me more than
once, but now I've taken him on for a finish fight."
"I hope you win it," she said. "In fact you must. Of course temperance
in all things is only a means to an end, Peter, but a failing like
that, if not taken in time and fought to a finish, becomes such a
frightful vice. As you say, it is a bigger and better thing to face the
enemy and beat him; yet it's a wise man who knows when to run."
"I'd rather face it, ma'am. I can't be running away from every gin mill
I meet. I intend to win this fight. I've given you a promise, ma'am,
and I mean to keep it."
She looked at me for a moment, and then, as if satisfied, dismissed me
with the injunction to be home before eleven.
And so the King's pawn set out to meet the Bishop's at Knight's as
per written instructions. I knew far better than Miss Gelette the
temptation I was deliberately courting, but I had steeled myself to
meet it. Something, too, far stronger for the moment than the Demon
urged me on--curiosity and love of adventure.
Knight's seemed to be well, if not favorably, known, for I got minute
directions from the first passer-by, and a short ride in the trolley
brought me almost to its doors. It was a garish place of the cheaper
class, displaying an electric sign, showing what purported to be a
knight on a charger, and it had the inevitable open-air restaurant
with a boisterous piano and several gentlemen of color who posed very
badly as musicians. The main building had a pool room and bowling alley
opening off the bar, while upstairs there were rooms to let, with or
without board.
I went into the open-air restaurant--though so styled, it was little
more than a beer garden--had a look at the various couples, dodged the
attentions of several vulpine waiters, had a peep into the pool room
and bowling alley, and then entered the bar.
Here I was face to face with the Demon in his lair, and the mere smell
rose up and took me by the throat. I need not try to analyze my
feelings, all I suffered. If you've ever had the craving, you'll know
what I mean; if you haven't, then nothing I might say would give you an
adequate idea. Just think of any normal desire you've had when it has
reached the aching point, then double it twice over.
I'll admit I had to conjure up and take a firm grip of everything I
held sacred--such as my promise to Miss Gelette--to keep me from making
a bolt right there for the bar and drinking my back teeth awash; but
I fought it down and looked round for the man I had come to meet. I
didn't see him, however, among the fair-sized crowd, and I was thinking
the suspicions I had formed were all wrong when a curiously dead voice
at my elbow whispered: "The Bishop's pawn."
I turned to confront the man with the bulging forehead, rudimentary
chin, and pale-blue eyes, eyes that were as lifeless as his voice.
He was dressed now in sober black, and, with his colorless face, he
somehow put me in mind of such cheerful things as the mattock and the
shroud. Indeed, he looked what a gravedigger is supposed to look like,
but seldom, if ever, does.
"The King's Bishop's pawn," he repeated, in the same discreet, dead
voice.
"The King's pawn," I answered, aware I was supposed to say something.
Evidently this was the correct formula, for he motioned me politely to
a table in an obscure corner of the back room, and called a waiter. I
was about to remark that I was "off the stuff" when he saved me the
trouble by asking gravely whether I preferred ginger ale, root beer, or
lemon soda. "For myself," he added, "I take buttermilk whenever I can
get it. It's really excellent here."
So I said to make it two and the waiter brought a three-pint pitcher
and a dish of pretzels. I marveled that such an order could be served
in the place, but as we were served without bloodshed, it would seem
that this wasn't my companion's first buttermilk orgy at Knight's.
Of course, after a thick night, buttermilk is the best thing one can
drink; so no wonder they had it in stock. Doubtless it was in frequent
requisition by the patrons.
"Your name, I understand, is Joyce?" said my companion politely when we
were alone.
"Yes, that's right. And yours?"
"Corby," he replied, raising his lifeless eyes to mine.
There is a peculiar suitability in some names; but then this might be
an assumed one. Or perhaps he was unaware that the Scotch call a crow
or raven a corbie. "Muckle black corbie"--that's what he looked; a
carrion crow, a foul bird of ill-omen.
"You come from headquarters?" he pursued.
"Yes, that's right. And you?"
"New York."
It followed then that headquarters, whatever that might represent,
wasn't in New York. Where was it?
He raised his glass and murmured softly: "The Black Company."
"Long may she wave!" said I heartily.
"I beg your pardon, sir?"
"Merely a figure of speech, Mr. Corby--like the black flag, you know.
_Vive le_ Black Company! Here's to it." And we pledged the sentiment in
buttermilk.
"You haven't been with us long, Mr. Joyce?"
"No, not very--that is, comparatively speaking. You see, what may seem
long at one time may seem short at another; it is merely a matter of
conditions and circumstances," I replied, aware that the skating was
pretty thin, and feeling exhilarated at the possibility of crashing
through up to my neck at any moment and without warning.
"And yet," he said meditatively, "you're attached to the King himself."
"Quite so," I agreed, endeavoring to look more important. "As you say,
the King himself."
"You must have made good right off the reel and in no uncertain way."
"Quite so; of course. Certainly."
"In what particular way, may I ask?"
"That, Mr. Corby, is a deep secret. I simply can't tell you," I
replied with refreshing candor. "It is a secret between--er--well, you
understand?"
To my relief he did, though I didn't. He nodded. "You mean the King?"
And he regarded me with increasing respect.
"Quite so; the King--God save him. Let us drink to the King, Mr. Corby."
We had another go at the buttermilk, a cold-blooded, miserably
unresponsive beverage, especially when one is after information.
You cannot get excited and enthusiastic over buttermilk; it doesn't
unloosen tongues and fill one with good-fellowship, make you forget the
rent is overdue, or anything like that. I believe the death of Cæsar
was plotted on buttermilk. Now a good bottle of the stuff that killed
father--I could drink Mr. Corby under the table, and Corby, for all
his present passion for buttermilk, was no natural-born milk fiend.
I guessed that; I knew his type--the pale kind of souse that can lap
up hooch like a sponge. If he wasn't taking it, he had a good reason;
perhaps he was just getting over a burst. But if I persuaded him? He
had nothing on me when it came to punishing redeye; not for nothing
had I and my family paid homage to King Alcohol. To warm this human
refrigerator sitting opposite me, to unloosen his tongue, to make him
glow and enthuse over this mysterious adelphia and part with further
information--surely I was justified! I had always drunk for pleasure,
but this would be business, a sacred duty.
And then I remembered my promise to Miss Gelette and knew that the
Demon, with his usual specious arguments, had been trying to get to
windward of me again. He had thought to take me in an unguarded moment
and by this new device. Moreover, the thought came that if Corby's
total abstinence was enforced, then mine might be expected to be so
too. It might be a cardinal rule of this secret society that such
measures were obligatory at certain times--say, while its members were
on active duty, carrying out some undertaking. By ordering whisky, and
persuading Corby to indulge, I might awaken suspicion if not actually
betray myself.
So I returned to my buttermilk, with an inward grimace, and, as it
turned out, I had no need of artificial stimulant--virtue being thus
rewarded for once--for Corby obligingly parted with more information of
his own volition, and very astonishing information it was.
"I'm down here in charge of a new member," he said. "Of course you've
heard of him?"
"Oh, yes; certainly."
"You saw him at the house?"
Had I? I tried to think of all the people who had called at the
Varney's. But was it their house he meant?
"I mean Frean, of course," said Corby.
"Oh, of course," said I. "Yes, I know him, but he doesn't know me. I
mean he doesn't know I'm a member."
"No, of course," said Corby again. "Were you not instructed as to
that?" raising the dead eyes to mine.
"No," I said boldly, seeing it was a case of plunging. "I was told
nothing about him."
"You will in good time. I don't think I've exceeded instructions in
telling you now. You know the precautions against possible treachery
that we must take with new members before they've been thoroughly
tested. The idea is for you also to be a watch on him without his
knowing."
"I see; a very good idea. No doubt my orders to that effect will come
later. You knew me, of course, because of my being with old Varney?"
"Certainly. We finished a good job, begun through headquarters, with
your predecessor." And he smiled in his melancholy fashion.
I was afraid to put any further questions, the man being no fool if
that forehead of his went for anything, and after an aimless general
conversation, principally about motor cars, he finished off the last
of the buttermilk and proposed a rubber of pinochle. This was played
without stakes, very cleverly on his part, but in the lifeless way
peculiar to him. Then he murmured that he would have to be getting
along, and, our riotous evening at an end, we adjourned to the sidewalk.
He accompanied me into Long Branch, and then gave me a hand like a dead
fish. "Good night, Mr. Joyce. Friday evening is your regular one off?
Then you will always find me on that evening at Knight's."
"Where is Frean stopping?"
"At the Queen, here." I knew this to be the name of a local hotel, so
he wasn't referring to another piece on the strange chessboard. "I'm
his chauffeur. You'll know not to recognize me, of course, until we
meet in the regular way. Even then it won't do to be seen too much
together, and until you get your orders, be sure not to let Frean see
that you know him. It might get me in hot water at headquarters."
He left me, and when I got home, Horace informed me that Miss Gelette
wanted me to fix an incandescent in the drawing-room.
I soon saw that this business about the light was only an excuse, that
Miss Gelette wished to see for herself if I had kept my promise; for
as I put in the bulb, she came and stood very close to me as though to
catch the aroma of John Barleycorn or any disinfectant I might have
used, so close indeed that it was all I could do to keep from kissing
her. I am really not given to promiscuous embraces, nor philandering in
any form, but when a very pretty and charming girl----However, you've
been in the same position yourself and know the temptation.
"You're home early, Peter," she said, apparently satisfied and pleased
when she saw I was eminently sober. "I see you are to be trusted. Well,
did you see your friend and get the chess problem?"
"Yes, ma'am. But I haven't solved it yet."
"Is it so difficult then?"
"Yes, a real brain-twister, ma'am."
"You must show it to me some time," she smiled. "I'm very fond of the
game myself. By the way, are you a strong player?"
"Pretty good, ma'am. Of course, it all depends on my opponents."
"I think you're too modest, Peter. I've an idea you're a very good
player, that you must have a natural gift for the game; for, of course,
you can't have had the opportunity of playing much. And so I'm going
to ask you something. It is possible that my uncle will want you to
play with him some night. He's a crank on the game and will play with
anybody he can find--if he thinks he can beat them. You understand?"
"Yes, ma'am. I've met players like that--and not only at chess. It's a
fine game so long as they always win."
"Well, Peter, if you can beat him, will you try not to? I'm quite sure
you're clever enough at the game to lose it in such a way that he'll
never suspect. You'll put up a good fight; but you'll let him win,
won't you?"
"Certainly, ma'am, if you say so; and of course, he may be able to beat
me without any faking."
"I'm sure he can't; he's not half so good a player as he thinks he
is--though I wouldn't let him know that for the world. If you let him
beat you, it will mean nothing to you, but a great deal to him--and to
me. You won't forget, Peter? Thank you so much. Oh, and another thing,
Peter; please don't try to help him, as you did the other morning. It
was very good of you, but he doesn't like it."
Alone in my room, I thought over my meeting with the Bishop's pawn
and the problem he had set me. I was reckoned a very strong player,
having played top board for my university, but here was a chess game
of another kind into which I had stumbled, thanks primarily to getting
drunk. The interview at Knight's confirmed the suspicions I had been
forming since the receipt of that strange message, and now, with pencil
and paper, I set to work on the problem. Here is what I evolved:
A secret society known as the Black Company, whose members
represent the black set of chessmen, therefore at least sixteen in
number--viz., King, Queen, two Bishops, two Knights, two Rooks, and
the eight Pawns. They are black, say, because it represents evil,
and they play against the white--meaning good--which may stand for
Society in general.
The headquarters are in Philadelphia, but its members are scattered
over different cities, and some of the pawns aren't known to
one another by sight, because it is clear that Corby can't ever
have seen Joyce. It's not a case of "doubles," for though Joyce
approximated my height and weight, color of hair and mustache,
Hewitt would have known unquestionably it wasn't I, if the remains
hadn't been so badly mutilated. These pawns are attached to and
serve under the orders of the various subleaders--Bishops, Knights,
Rooks.
For some reason, at present quite obscure, it was planned to
replace Jules, Varney's chauffeur, by a member of the Black
Company. To this end, and in order that his discharge would occur
naturally, they discovered and played upon his old weakness
for drink. Begun in Philadelphia, it was finished here. Joyce,
the King's pawn, came to take his place, probably on forged
recommendation papers.
Queries: Of precisely what nature is the Black Company? Is Theodore
Varney a member? If so, why the campaign to get Joyce placed here?
Was it to deceive his niece or some one else?
Why did Joyce act as he did, instead of coming here to fill
the position? Did he get cold feet at the last moment, is such
defection punishable by death, and did he try to make his escape,
changing his identity to mine? This is a feeble explanation, but
the only one I can advance at present.
How long can I play the rôle of Joyce? Clearly, if I make no
mistakes, until such time as a member appears who knew him by
sight. Perhaps long enough for me to discover and checkmate
whatever move they're up to. They don't know that Joyce is dead and
buried under my name.
After some further speculation, which led me nowhere, I destroyed the
paper and went to bed, where I dreamed that Corby, a gigantic and
animated black bishop, was trying to drown me in a vat of buttermilk.