“There it is: the Dangerfield Luck. I don’t say I believe the legend; I won’t say I doubt it. However the thing came to us, it’s our oldest possession and experts tell me that the workmanship is extraordinarily old. And now, I think I can show you something less romantic, though it’s not without its interest.”
He moved forward and pushed aside some rugs with his foot, so that the black and white marble squares in the centre of the floor were cleared.
“I told you, I think, that this was the room mainly used by my grandfather, the Corinthian. It was, in fact, the very last room he ever entered. Possibly some of you remember something about the Regency times, the gambling, the prize-fighting, the duelling that went on. Eccentricity was often the pass-key to notoriety in those days; some of the bucks cultivated it wilfully. I believe that my grandfather was genuinely eccentric in this particular affair. He was a fanatic for chess playing and this was his chess board. You see the marble squares on the floor.”
He stooped down and lifted a metal plug from the centre of a square.
“Each of these squares has a plug like this at its centre. They’re really put in to keep dirt out of the holes when no game is being played. When they wanted to set the pieces, all the plugs were taken out; and then the board was ready.”
He stepped across the room and threw open the oaken cupboard on the wall.
“These are the chess-men. You see they are on a scale to match the board, each of them about a foot and a half high. Mr. Westenhanger, would you mind lifting one of them out—a pawn will do. They’re too heavy for me, nowadays.”
Westenhanger came forward and gripped one of the iron pieces.
“Lift it up off the shelf before you pull it forward,” said old Dangerfield. “There’s a spike on the foot of each piece, fitting into a hole in the shelf—the spike that goes into the hole in the chess-board, so that the piece can’t be accidentally knocked over. They’re top-heavy things. The Staunton pattern wasn’t invented in those days.”
It took more effort than Westenhanger had expected to lift the thing from its place and carry it over to the chess-board. He dropped it into position on one of the squares, the iron rod slipping easily into the hole and fixing the piece firmly.