“Gives me the creeps,” said Demarest. “What else did Jeremiah say?”
“Jeremiah, as a matter of fact, is a fatalist — that’s funny, isn’t it? Says he never interferes, even when he knows, because it’s sure to happen anyway, and the knowledge merely adds to the victim’s misery. Nice, isn’t it?… It occurred to me that it might be me. Why not? I’m not young. Maybe somebody has discovered that I’ve got a trunkful of chewing gum under my bed. Maybe it’s Jeremiah himself who’ll be the murderer.”
“Nothing more probable,” said Hay-Lawrence. “If you don’t shut up and let me think, I’ll murder you myself.”
“Don’t be snotty, Clarence. Remember the freedom of the seas.”
He took the pawn. Demarest retaliated. Bishop to bishop square moved Hay-Lawrence — to free the rook. — Was Silberstein making up all this yarn of the clairvoyant? “Well? It convinces you? It sounds fairly circumstantial?” Yes — it was circumstantial.
“Who is this bird?” he said, lifting the king’s rook to the knight square.
“Clark, Seward Trewlove Clark, from California. Unitarian minister, clairvoyant and clairaudient. Smokes a kind of herb tobacco which looks like confetti and smells like hell. Turns in his toes when he walks, and is only four feet high.”
“You’ve made a careful study of him. Does he wear B.V.D.’s? Boston garters?”
“A hair shirt, probably … Are you castin’ asparagus on my story? Are you — as they say — questioning my veracity, Mr. Demarest? Have a cigar.”
“Not in the least … Thanks; I’ll smoke it after dinner …”
“Oh, he’s full of it. Astrology, mediums, trances, crystals, table rappings, and the cold and slimy ectoplasm. Who knows? It may be an ecoplastic murder … Hello! Is that our friend the Major? Getting his hand in already, is he? Fie.”
“Easy money,” murmured Hay-Lawrence.
Silberstein, turtle-faced, impassive, watched the Major with reptile eyes.
“Check!” said Hay-Lawrence, taking the rook.
“Check, says he.” Demarest recaptured the queen’s rook. How much of the game was Silberstein taking in? A good deal probably. He had seen that Hay-Lawrence was uncomfortably placed, and that his vanity was suffering. This “check” too — no doubt Silberstein saw it to be partly histrionic. Hay-Lawrence stared, flushed, at the pieces, fists on cheeks. Then, frowning, he moved the bishop to knight two. The conception of defeat. Blood — blood — blood—throbbed the engines, impersonating the furies. How delightful, this discovery of Caligula’s about the clairvoyant! Just the sort of thing he would unearth. One could see him coldly and implacably questioning the little fool — taking off his very B.V.D.’s. “You believe in these things, do you, Mr. Clark?” “Yes.” “Well, I don’t: but I shall be interested to hear any evidence you have to offer. Speak up — don’t be frightened — I’m listening!” … “We must go forward with caution, reverence and hope,” replied the clairvoyant … Now, then, knight to knight six — and the crisis arises. My horse for a kingdom. Hay-Lawrence stared, immobile, an expression of stupor, or perhaps terror, in the fixed unseeing eyes: loss of psychic distance. One could almost hear the blood hammering at his temples — gush, clang, throb, thrum, pound, pulse, boom. Blood — blood — blood—sang the furies. Hay-Lawrence is doomed. Hay-Lawrence is being done to death. Demarest is murdering him, murdering him in little on a chessboard. There lies Hay-Lawrence, disguised as fourteen pieces (still living) and two pieces (dead) dispersed on a checkered board, fighting for his life. There Demarest, disguised as fourteen pieces, articulated like the adder, coils, hisses and straightly strikes. Death in miniature. Death in a cobweb. Was there a tear in Vivien’s left eye? No — the reflection of a light in the rondure of the monocle. A tear falling in Vivien’s heart, like the reflection of a moving light, tiny, down a lacquered edge — the cold secret tear of a nobleman, falling remotely and soundlessly. Miss Gadsby, of Andover. “Why do people come to me in their trouble? It is strange. They come — they come. There was the case of Henry Majoribanks, only last month. He telegraphed from Chicago — or was it St. Louis? — to say that he was coming. When he came he walked straight into the drawing room, where I was sitting, knelt before me without a word, and buried his face in my lap. I put my hands on his head. ‘What is it, Henry?’ I said. He wept — for five minutes he wept, shaken by sobs. Then, without a word, he rose and went away — went back to Chicago, or St. Louis … Why?… What is it in me that is so unconsciously beneficient, so comforting, so healing? I am only an ordinary woman. Why should Henry — whom I have never known very intimately — come all the way from Little Rock — to weep in my lap? Tears from the depths of some divine despair!.. Yet I am grateful for this gift which God has given me, even though I cannot wholly understand it … They come to me for solace …” Knight to knight square, moved Hay-Lawrence, the murdered man.
“You’re sunk,” sighed Silberstein. “See you later, gentlemen. I now struggle into a stiff shirt.”
“Good riddance,” said Hay-Lawrence. “He’s an interesting chap but he can be a damned nuisance.”
“He has a strange effect on me,” said Demarest, moving the bishop to knight five. “What is it, in such a man, that disturbs one’s balance so extraordinarily?”
“Thick-skinnedness.”
“Partly, perhaps. But something more. Is it his massive confidence, rocklike integrity? I lose, in his presence, my own integrity entirely. I feel as if I have no personality at all. Or rather, I feel that my own personality is only a complement of his — and I catch myself actually trying to demonstrate this to him — trying to be as like him as possible. Such occurrences make one wonder whether one has any more personality than a chameleon … I have, afterward, a weary and disgusted sensation — as of having wagged too much an ingratiating tail.”
Hay-Lawrence gleamed. He placed the king’s bishop at king two.
“By Jove, that’s perfectly true. I know people who affect me like that … My father always did … So does my doctor.”
“Well, boys, later on,” sang the glass-eyed poker player. He pocketed two packs of cards. They trooped out, whistling and singing. Cold air from the sea door. Bishop takes knight? No — next time. Queen to knight two.
“It doesn’t seem to make much difference,” Hay-Lawrence resignedly murmured. “Suppose I advance the rook’s pawn.” Pawn to rook three. Now — bishop takes knight! Hay-Lawrence dies slowly. A caterpillar attacked by ants. Then bishop takes bishop. A piece will be gained? Knight back to bishop four — the bishop twice attacked. Ten to one he advances the rook to king two — he does. Queen to knight six: the coup de grâce …
“Oh — well! I’ll hide the bishop in the rook’s corner … No—that’s no good … Suppose I exchange queens?”
“Queen takes queen and rook takes queen,” said Demarest, suiting the action to the word.
“Absolutely nothing I can do — I surrender.”
“I’m afraid you’ve lost a piece — whatever you do …”
“Yes. Thanks very much. We’ll have another some time … Has the bugle blown?”
“I think so.”
Why “think so”? He knew it had. They descended the red stairs to the dining saloon. The orchestra was beginning the Blue Danube: and the music rose to meet them, mixed with a confused sound of voices and dishes. The palm trees trembled, swayed slowly trembling, in the bright light from pearly ceiling lights. Pink curtains were drawn over all the portholes save one, which yawned black, night-engulfing. A hundred faces feeding as one. Stewards running soft-footed on the stinking carpets, dishes clattering, dishes chirruping, trays clanging — all interwoven, pouring, with the Blue Danube. The pale pianist, with frayed and spotted sleeves, smiled wearily at the score, tum-tum: the girl-faced flute player hooked his lip, uncous lip, over the flute, and eyed Demarest mournfully, tootle-too. Blaue Donau. Should he tell Hay-Lawrence Wagner’s remark?… “My God, what a melody!.. But—Jesus Christ! what orchestration …” No, too noisy, not the right moment for it. Save it up. Da, die, dee, dum — die—dum: die dee … Anita. He always, when a kid, at dances, danced the Blue Danube with Anita. Her odd, delicious laugh, which ended in an inbreathing bubble, like the bubbling of a starling! Darling starling. Darling, hoydenish, long-legged Anita. Down from a star by a stairway of vines. That Sunday in the rain by the pond. “But William, you don’t seem to think anything about marriage! Do you?” Then the streetcar in the rain, the rain-soaked curtain blowing against their backs; flap, flap. Rejected. Was he heartbroken? Surprised at being able to eat a good dinner at Memorial Hall. “Where are my waffles, Sam Childers?” “On de fire, suh — waffles on de fire.”