They return at evening A book of ghost stories
first and Morisson second among the chess players of Great Britain.
I can say that because I have no vanity: vanity cannot breathe and
live in rarified intellectual altitudes. In chess the master surveys
his skill impersonally, he criticises it impartially. He is great; he
knows it; he can prove it; that is all.
I persuaded Morisson to enter for the British Championship six months
later, and I returned to my rooms in Bloomsbury to perfect my game.
Day after day I spent in the most intensive study, and succeeded in
curing my one weakness. I just mention this point briefly for the
benefit of chess players. I had a certain lethargy when forced to
analyse intricate end-game positions. This, as I say, I overcame. A
few games at the City Club convinced me that I was, at last, worthy
to be called Master. Except for these occasional visits I spent
those six months entirely alone: it was the happiest period of my
life. I had complete freedom from human contacts, excellent health
and unlimited time to move thirty-two pieces of the finest ivory over
a charming checkered board.
I took a house at Bournemouth for the fortnight of the Championship,
and I asked Morisson to stay with me. I felt I had to have him near
me. He arrived the night before play began. When he came into my
study I had one of those agonising paroxysms of jealousy to which I
have alluded. I conquered it, but the reaction, as ever, took the
form of a loathsome feeling of inferiority, almost servility.
Morisson was six foot two in height; I am five foot one. He had, as I
impartially recognise, a face of great dignity and beauty, a mind at
once of the greatest profundity and the most exquisite flippancy. My
face is a perfect index to my character; it is angular, sallow, and
its expression is one of seething distaste. As I say, I know my mind
to be the greater of the two, but I express myself with an inevitable
and blasting brutality, which disgusts and repels all who sample it.
Nevertheless, it is that brutality which attracted Morisson, at times
it fascinated him. I believe he realised, as I do, how implacably
our destinies were interwoven.
Arriving next morning at the hall in which the Championship was to
be held, I learned two things which affected me profoundly. The
first, that by the accident of the pairing I should not meet Morisson
until the last round, secondly, that the winner of the Championship
would be selected to play in the forthcoming Masters’ Tournament at
Budapesth.
I will pass quickly over the story of this Championship. It fully
justified my conviction. When I sat down opposite Morisson in the
last round we were precisely level, both of us having defeated all
our opponents, though I had shown the greater mastery and certainty.
I began this game with the greatest confidence. I outplayed him from
the start, and by the fifteenth move I felt convinced I had a won
game. I was just about to make my sixteenth move when Morisson looked
across at me with that curious smile on his face, half superior,
half admiring, which he had given me so often before, when after a
terrific struggle he had proved his superiority in every other test
but chess. The smile that I was to see again. At once I hesitated.
I felt again that sense of almost cringing subservience. No doubt
I was tired, the strain of that fortnight had told, but it was, as
it always had been, something deeper, something more virulent,
than anything fatigue could produce. My brain simply refused to
concentrate. The long and subtle combination which I had analysed
so certainly seemed suddenly full of flaws. My time was passing
dangerously quickly. I made one last effort to force my brain to
work, and then desperately moved a piece. How clearly I remember
the look of amazement on Morisson’s face. For a moment he scented
a trap, and then, seeing none, for there was none, he moved and I
was myself again. I saw I must lose a piece and the game. After
losing a Knight, I fought with a concentrated brilliance I had never
attained before, with the result that I kept the game alive till the
adjournment and indeed recovered some ground, but I knew when I left
the hall with Morisson that on the next morning only a miracle could
save me, and that once again, in the test of all tests in which I
longed to beat him, he would, as ever at great crises, be revealed as
my master. As I trotted back to my house beside him the words “only
a miracle” throbbed in my brain insinuatingly. Was there no other
possibility? Of a sudden I came to the definite, unalterable decision
that I would kill Morisson that night, and my brain began, like the
perfectly trained machine it is, to plan the means by which I could
kill him certainly and safely. The speed of this decision may sound
incredible, but here I must be allowed a short digression. It has
long been a theory of mine that there are two distinct if remotely
connected processes operating in the human mind. I term these
the “surface” and the “sub-surface” processes. I am not entirely
satisfied with these terms, and I have thought of substituting for
them the terms “conscious” and “subconscious.” However, that is a
somewhat academic distinction. I believe that my sub-surface mind had
considered this destruction of Morisson many times before, and that
these paroxysms of jealousy, the outcome as they were of consistent
and unjust frustration, were the minatory symptoms that the content
of my sub-surface would one day become the impulse of my surface
mind, forcing me to plan and execute the death of Morisson.
When we arrived at the house I went first to my bedroom to fetch a
most potent, swift-working, and tasteless narcotic which a German
doctor had once prescribed for me in Munich when I was suffering
from insomnia. I then went to the dining-room, mixed two whiskies
and soda, put a heavy dose of the drug into Morisson’s tumbler, and
went back to the study. I had hoped that he would drink it quickly:
instead, he put it by his side and began a long monologue on luck.
Possibly my fatal move had suggested it. He said that he had always
regarded himself as an extremely lucky man, in his work, his friends,
his wife. He supposed that his rigidly rational mind demanded for its
relief some such inconsistency, some such sop. “About four months
ago,” he said, “I had an equally irrational experience, a sharp
premonition of death, which lingered with me. I told my wife--you
will never agree, Pownall, but there is something to be said for
matrimony: if I were dying I should like Marie to be with me, gross
sentimentality, of course--I told my wife, who is of a distinctly
psychic, superstitious if you like, turn of mind, and she persuaded
me to go to a clairvoyant of whom she had a high opinion. I went
sceptically, partly to please her, partly for the amusement of
sampling one of this tribe. She was a curious, dingy female, slightly
disconcerting. She stared at me remotely and then remarked, ‘It was
always destined that he should do it.’ I plied her with questions,
but she would say nothing more. I think you will agree, Pownall,
that this was a typically nebulous two-guineas’ worth.” And then he
drained his glass.
Shortly afterwards he began to yawn repeatedly, and went to bed. He
staggered slightly on entering his room. “Good-night, Pownall,” he
said, as he closed the door, “let’s hope somehow or other we may both
be at Budapesth.”
Half an hour later I went into his room. He had just managed to
undress before the drug had overwhelmed him. I shut the window,
turned on the gas, and went out. I spent the next hour playing over
that fatal game. I quickly discovered the right line I had missed,
then with a wet towel over my face, I re-entered his room. He was
dead. I turned off the gas, opened all the windows, waited till the
gas had cleared, and then went to bed, to sleep as soundly as ever in
my life, though I had a curiously vivid dream. I may say I dream but
seldom, and I never before realised how sharp and convincing these
silly images could be, for I saw Morisson running through the dark
and deserted streets of Oxford till he reached his house, and then he
hammered with his fists on the door, and as he did so he gave a great
cry, “Marie! Marie!” and then he fell rolling down the steps, and I
awoke. This dream recurred for some time after, and always left a
somewhat unpleasant impression on my mind.
The events of the next day were not pleasant. They composed a testing
ordeal which remains very vividly in my mind. I had to act, and act
very carefully, to deceive my maid, who came screaming into my
room in the morning, to fool the half-witted local constable, the
self-important local doctor, and carry through the farce generally
in a convincing mode. I successfully suggested that as Morisson
had suffered from heart weakness for some years, his own Oxford
doctor should be sent for. Of course I had to wire to his wife.
She arrived in the afternoon--and altogether I did not spend an
uneventful day. However, all went well. The verdict at the inquest
was “natural causes,” and a day or two afterwards I was notified that
I was British Chess Champion and had been selected for Budapesth. I
received some medal or other, which I threw into the sea.
Four months intervened before the tournament at Budapesth; I spent
them entirely alone, perfecting my game. At the end of that period
I can say with absolute certainty that I was the greatest player
in the world; my swift unimpeded growth of power is, I believe,
unprecedented in the history of chess. There was, I remember, during
this time, a curious little incident. One evening after a long,
profound analysis of a position, I felt stale and tired, and went out
for a walk. When I got back I noticed a piece had been moved, and
that the move constituted the one perfect answer to the combination I
had been working out. I asked my landlady if anybody had been to my
room: she said not, and I let the subject drop.
The Masters’ Tournament at Budapesth was perhaps the greatest ever
held. All the most famous players in the world were gathered there,
yet I, a practically unknown person, faced the terrific task of
engaging them, one by one, day after day, with supreme confidence.
I felt they could have no surprises for me, but that I should have
many for them. Were I writing for chess players only, I would explain
technically the grounds for this confidence. As it is, I will merely
state that I had worked out the most subtle and daring variants from
existing practice. I was a century ahead of my time.
In my first round I was paired with the great Russian Master,
Osvensky. When I met him he looked at me as if he wondered what I
was doing there. He repeated my name as though it came as a complete
surprise to him. I gave him a look which I have employed before when
I have suspected insolence, and he altered his manner. We sat down.
Having the white pieces, I employed that most subtle of all openings,
the Queen’s bishop’s pawn gambit. He chose an orthodox defence, and
for ten moves the game took a normal course. Then at my eleventh
move I offered the sacrifice of a knight, the first of the tremendous
surprises I sprang upon my opponents in this tournament. I can see
him now, the quick searching glance he gave me, and his great and
growing agitation. Every chess player reveals great strain by much
the same symptoms, by nervous movements, hurried glances at the