Steampunk Prime_ A Vintage Steampunk Reader - Mike Ashley [17]
“I am immensely obliged to you, old friend,” said Dryden, “I will make it no secret from you that I am in a very bad way for money. A totally unlooked for misfortune has deprived me of the greater part of my regular income, and the interest that has followed this Automaton has caused several of the important tournaments, that I should have made money out of, to be abandoned. If I can win this match, I get £1,000, which will set me straight, and from my victory I shall gain a reputation that will put me in the way of much future gain. If I were to write a book on chess; it would enormously enhance its sale.”
“I am sorry to hear of your distress,” said Mr. Druce, “which I had never suspected, and I am the more glad that I may be of a little use to you. You will stop to dinner, of course, and before you go I will give you the records of a great many of Murray’s games. He has had enough of his mysterious triumph, and it is quite time the joke came to an end.”
Dinner was quiet and pleasant, and though the presence of Charles Cunliffe, the curate, who was fresh from Magdalen, and cared for nothing except stamped leather bindings and the fine embroidery of a cope, excluded chess from the conversation, the three men found the subject of continental travel a convenient exchange for opinions. Mr. Cunliffe had in undergraduate days paid several visits to Boulogne, and held elaborate ideas on the subject of racial distinctions.
Mr. Dryden bade farewell to the two clergymen in the little station, now cool and pleasant in the moonlight, and during the seventy minutes of his journey to Charing Cross, examined feverishly the bundle of papers that Mr. Druce had given him. For the next week he kept himself strictly from the world and held unceasingly to his task of investigating Mr. Murray’s methods. At the end of that time there came to him the conviction that he had met his master. As before he had known that the uncanny spirit of the Automaton would surely beat him, so now he realized with a pain — all the worse because it swept away the hopes that Mr. Druce’s story had inspired — that in the brain of the little old Scotch librarian was the same power, none the less real now that it had lost its odor of mystery.
Meanwhile his creditors had become more instant in their demands, and poor Mr. Dryden, crushed with despondency and overwhelmed with debt, conceived a hatred towards the automatic figure and its inmate that increased in bitterness as each day brought him nearer to the contest that he felt certain would prove his Waterloo.
For the three weeks he kept entirely to his own house and held no communication with the outside world, except for a short correspondence with the President of the club on the matter of the challenge, and the arrangements for day and hour. He received one short letter from Mr. Druce, wishing him good fortune and assuring him that he would be among the audience to watch the downfall of the Automaton.
Whatever mistrust of his powers he might entertain, it was not his own money that he would sacrifice by abandoning the match, and in the interests of the club he was bound to go through with the affair.
Four days before the match he came to Bristol and took apartments in a house in the Hot-wells that faced the river. The coming match had aroused extreme interest in the town, and crowds were continually assembled about the station at Temple Mead, in hope of a prior view of the Automaton.
On the day after his arrival he sat for many hours at the window, watching the tall spars of the ships show stark against the cliffs as the vessels were towed to and from the city. The chatter of the riverside loafers that reached his ears treated always of the Automaton, and the improbable speculations that were hazarded brought a weary smile to his face. About sunset he left the house, and, following a winding path, climbed the edge of the gorge, coming out upon the Clifton Down. For a little while he sat there, watching the silent beauty of the scene.