[CHAPTER XIII.]
In which Rathbeal makes a winning Move.
On this same day Rathbeal had met with adventures. There was a coffee shop in his neighborhood to which he was in the habit of going, two or three times a week, to have a cup of coffee and play a game of chess with the hoary proprietor.
It belonged to a class of shops which once were a favorite resort for working people, but are now fast dying out; they are only to be found in second-class neighborhoods, and seem, as it were, to be striving to keep themselves out of sight, with a painful consciousness that they are relics of a bygone age, and have no business to be in existence. It cannot be said that they die hard, for there is a patient and sad resignation in their appearance, which in its humbleness and abasement is almost pathetic. The interior of these shops is as shabby and uninviting as their exterior. There are the narrow boxes which cramp the legs to sit in, the tables are bare of covering, the knives and forks are of ancient fashion, the crockery is in its last stage, and the once brilliant luster of the dominoes has quite disappeared, double one especially looking up with two hollow dead white eyes which cannot but have an inexpressibly depressing influence upon the players. The draughts and chessmen with their one wooden board are in a like condition of decay, and the games played thereon are the reverse of lively. There is another peculiarity which forces itself upon the attention. All the newspapers are old, some dating back several weeks, and they are allowed to lie about till they are in a condition so disgraceful that they are fit for nothing but lighting fires. These newspapers are never bought on the day of issue, but considerably later on, at less than a quarter their original price. Thus it was that in the coffee shop to which Rathbeal was in the habit of resorting there were always to be found two or three copies of the _Times_, of dates varying from one to two months ago.
On the day in question, Rathbeal, while the hoary proprietor was fetching the chessmen and board, happened to take up one of these sheets and run his eyes down the columns. It was not news he was glancing at, but advertisements, and he was conning the first page of the newspaper. When the proprietor of the shop took his seat opposite to him and arranged his men, Rathbeal, folding the paper neatly, laid it beside him on the table. Then he proceeded to place his warriors, and the game was commenced. The proprietor was a slow player, Rathbeal moved very quickly; thus it was that he had plenty of leisure to glance from time to time at the newspaper by his side. "Check," he called, and turned his eyes upon the paper. A sudden color flushed into his face, caused by an advertisement he had up to this time overlooked. This was what he read:
If Mr. Robert Grantham, born in Leamington, Warwickshire, will call upon Messrs. Paxton and Freshfield, solicitors, Bedford Row, London, he will hear of something to his advantage.
Rising hastily, he upset the chessboard. The proprietor looked up in surprise.
"Your game," said Rathbeal, and then consulted the date of the newspaper. It was nearly seven weeks old. Permission being given to him to make a cutting from the paper, he cut out the advertisement very neatly, and asked the proprietor whether he had a London Directory in the shop.
"I have one," said the proprietor, "but it is twelve years old."
"That will do," said Rathbeal. "Lawyers are rocks."