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“Ah!” He said with an ugly smile. “So our little friend has been talking? I expected as much. As you say, it is just as well we should understand one another, Broadbent. Now between you and I and this thing,” be went on, pointing to the Faun, who now stood at our side in topcoat and cap, “I should forget everything you have heard or seen, if I were you. You know my power, and it may interest you to learn that distance does not count with me. I know your approximate rate of vibration on the cosmic plane, and can act accordingly. It would be just as easy for me to double you up from my laboratory by pressing the first button in my little box as it was to operate on our friend just now, and nothing would be easier than to make an end of you by pressing the second button between the songs of my accomplished frog. Verb sap. All things considered, I should strongly advise you to forget this little interlude in your existence. Now I have only just time to catch the train. Come along,” he added to the Faun.

Tears were still raining from its eyes. “Good-bye, Mr. Broadbent,” it clicked hoarsely, “Don’t forget me.” Then it pulled its cap down over its face, and followed Baxter out of the window. That is the last I saw of them. I turned to my work, and tried to continue it; but try as I would the picture of the unhappy Faun and its captor came back, to me. What would happen to it on its return to the laboratory? In the best case Baxter would make an end to it when it suited his purpose, and what might not Billiter do in the meantime?

These thoughts effectually prevented my working all yesterday. I am now five chapters behind in my novel — an unprecedented position for me — and whilst I have this matter on my mind I feel I can do no writing. I have therefore decided to let the public know what is happening in Lord Baxter’s laboratory, urging that immediate steps shall be taken to protect his hapless creations. I have no use either for a Tetrazzini frog or a calculating ferret, if these are found to be still alive, but I am prepared to offer permanent asylum to the Faun. Indeed, Lord Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion is now waiting for it on my table.

I am aware that I run considerable personal risk in making this exposure. Baxter knows my approximate rate of vibration on the cosmic plane, whatever that may mean, and probably can operate upon me from any distance; but if I should come to an untimely end the authorities know on whom to fix the crime.

And now with a clear conscience, I am going to describe the terrible struggle in the roof-garden of the New York restaurant in the “The Multi-Millionaires.”

THE AUTOMATON

Reginald Bacchus and Ranger Gull

The idea of a chess-playing automaton goes back to the time of Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734-1804) who created such a contraption in 1770. It was known as The Turk and was exhibited throughout the courts of Europe. After von Kempelen’s death it was acquired by Johann Maelzel (1772-1838), a creator of musical automata. He toured throughout Europe and one of the contestants who challenged the Turk to a chess match in 1809 was no less than Napoleon Bonaparte. The Turk won. Maelzel subsequently toured New York and New England. It was in America that the Turk was exposed as a hoax, operated by a chess master hiding in the base of the machine. Edgar Allan Poe wrote an expose in “Maelzel’s Chess Player” (1836). By then the idea of an automaton chess player had become iconic and it appears in several stories. Probably the best known is “Moxon’s Master” by Ambrose Bierce (1899). The following story appeared soon after in the January 1900 issue of The Ludgate.

The two authors would both acquire notoriety. At the time they wrote this and several similar stories they were sharing accommodation in central London which became a regular meeting place for the literati. Both were journalists who were also editing a weekly society paper. Bacchus (1873-1945), or George Reginald Bacchus [“Reggie”], to give him his full name, came from a military family and