Shortridge High School - Annual Yearbook (Indianapolis, IN)

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THE PIECE AND THE PAWN roomg no sound except for the hissing emission of air from the professor's nostrils, and the motonous ticking of the tall hour clock. Outside, the rain pattered on the large panes, the Wind blew, and the gate clankedg rhythmic, endless, clank-clank-clank ..... Chiming three, the clock awoke Professor Mastrovan. He started and looked around him. All was inky blackness but for the huge window which shone smudgy grey through the large regular diamond panes. The lights had been put out, possibly by the storm which had now settled into a steady, hard rain. The professor fumbled for a match and, finding one, rose and lighted a candle. The flame sputtered, then grew tall and full. Instantly there leaped upon the wall a thousand apparltions of unholy form, flitting here and there among the crannies and the corners, as the flame moved toward the door. The chessmen cast ever- lengthening shadows across their board, and from the disordered midst didst seem to rise the king and say, I am the State! The door closed and once more the library was plunged into darkness. Mastrovan walked through the hall and to the foot of the stair- case, where he stopped for a moment. Just as he started to mount the first stair, he stopped dead still. Like a flash it had come to him! He had solved the most difficult problem on which he had ever worked. From it he could develop a plan of playing that would make him master in the world of chess! Turning, he Walked briskly back into the library. He sat down in front of his chess table and made a notation of the move on the board. Simultaneously with this motion, the chessboard with its men was blotted from the view of the professor by a cloud of green smoke, which gradually grew denser! The chessmen seemed to grow taller and taller. Their heads emerged from the top of the dense en- veloping vapor, the awful green cloud. They grew taller-taller-taller! Mastrovan found himself in a gigantic hall. The ceiling towered far-far --far above his head. It was supported by endless columns which, on second glance, proved to be endless, elongated chessmen. The vast- ness of the hall was appalling. It was paved with immense black and white marble blocks in checkerboard style. The atmosphere was heavy. To Mastrovan it grew unbearable, the silence was crushing. The whole huge hall was resting on his shoulders. The pressure made the flow df blood in his veins almost stop. His head was about to split! The whole thing seemed so purposeless. He ran, seemingly for days, but when he stopped, he was strangely at the same spot whence he had started. It was torture! There was nothing silent about the place now. It had become, suddenly, a bedlam. The professor could not determine the source of the din. It was terrifying! From nowhere there appeared before the professor two knights clad in purple armor, each of them topped with an astounding red plume. They chanted in unison, Will you come with us? You shall come with us! You are coming! Now! Away! At that moment, the whole unbelievable hall was crushed. He was in the midst of an infernal chaos, but in this chaos there was no sound, no color-only blackness ..... and pain. When the butler came into the library, next morning, he was not greatly surprised to find Mastrovan sitting in his chair before the chess table with an expression of horror fixed on his countenance. The body was cold, rigid, lifeless. For several weeks after Mastrovan's death, his house was closed. One night three men might have been observed entering the house of the late Professor Mastrovan. From the street, their identity might hardly have been discerned, so closely were they wrapped in defense of the fog which lay heavy and low outside. Once on the inside, they disrobed, the thick fog filtering from the folds of their clothing like

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THE PIECE AND THE PAWN CHARLES HAGEDON l Losiwdots HE clock struck ten. Professor Mastro- van Was still bent over his chess table in the library. He was working indefatigably over a chess problem. It was one that seem- ingly fascinated him, but yet one whose perfect solution had so far eluded him. The one move that stood between his- mas- tery of a perplexing situation of pieces was just beyond his reach, now so near and yet, ever so distant. The room, which was lined with row upon row of shelves towering toward a lofty ceiling, had become slightly close and stuffy. Despite the cool dampness of the atmos- phere outside and the largeness of the room, there would have greeted one, should anyone have come into the room, a strange odor. It was a thick, heavy odor, a min- gling of smouldering fire, which had been laid in the fireplace some hours back, of the smell of stale pipe smoke, and the steam of strong coffee. All of these were mater- ially helping in the solution of the puzzle. It was no ordinary problem. It had involved days of study and careful, patient work. Still the thing was unsolved. The professor would keep this up until he had mastered it and then would start another. His chess was his life. A man of independent position and letters, his game had become his one love, his passion, and his vice. His only friends were his club fel- lows and his servants, other society than this he shunned. Mastrovan was rapidly be- coming a soul apart, a man with one reign- ing ambition, a man whose system of nerves was reaching a precarious position. The last echo of the eleventh chime had died away, and all was still except for the wind moaning and the rain pattering around the gables of the old Tudor house. Without, there was the rhythmic clanking of an old iron gate, forced to and fro by the mys- terious wind. In the great library, the fire had sunk in blackness, and even the electric globe in the lamp by the chess table gave off a lesser radiancyg the room seemed smaller. The shadows had aggressed from the black stillness of their corners, creat- ing an even darker stigma upon the room. Mastrovan sat stooped in his chair. His hand was placed over his eyes, possibly to shade and rest them. Perhaps he had fall- en asleep. There was no sound in the great

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THE PIECE AND THE PAWN wisps of smoke. One of the men was the butler who had worked there before the house had been closed. The other two were lawyers who had come with the butler to go into the personal effects of the late professor. The butler laid a fire in the library and left the two lawyers in front of it, going through a chest of papers. One of them came upon a box containing the chessmen of the late master of that game. Now, it so happened that both of the lawyers were more than passively interested in the game of chess, and when at the bottom of the box they found a problem, both of the professional gentlemen were greatly delighted. They drew up the chess table between them and began to set up the problem. Little did they know that this was the one that the professor had solved on his fatal night. After arranging the pieces and the pawns, the lawyers began to analyze the problem. All this time the room was growing darker. Drops of rain, new born of the unhappy fog outside, pattered a dreary dirge against the great grey window. The fire grew dimmer and the air in the room became stifling. Both of the lawyers were increasingly nervous, however, they still kept their minds on the problem. One of them saw, at the bottom of the sheet of notations, the last triumphant move as indicated by the pro- fessor. He started to make the move, but was interrupted by the open- ing of the library door. Both were so startled that they stared straight ahead, each at the other. Of the pair, one was a rather stout gentleman. On his forehead were clustered countless little globules of sweat. Who- ever had opened the door had strode across the room with quick decisive steps. The stout gentleman was the first one to look up. Besides his colleague,'there was no one in the room! He could stand it no longer. In leaping to his feet, he clumsily knocked over the chess table. The chessmen and paper, on which the notations for that queer puzzle had been written, were plunged into the flre. It seemed as if they were con- sumed in a flash. Strangely enough, the fire grew brighter, the room seemed less stifling, and the rain had ceased to patter its weary dirge upon the great, grey window. The stout lawyer opened a window on the other side of the room, closed the library door, and came back to sit down. Both men were obviously relieved. Neither of them spoke a word about the problem. Indeed, had they tried to remember that phe- nomena, they would have found it impossible. The incident was closed. STRANGE FEELINGS As I sit alone in the flreside gloom, All the black outside seems to fill the room, And the wind howls loud and the windows creak, And the shadows all play at hide-and-seek, Why, I never felt so strange before. Could it be a face that appears at the door? Oh, I know why shadows all make me quail, I'm alone, and reading a mystery tale. -Dorothy Lower