Rollo took the thing back without comment. Westenhanger passed him the paper also; and old Dangerfield replaced them in the safe. He was turning to leave the room when Westenhanger spoke again.
“By the way, the Dangerfield Secret’s only three generations old, isn’t it, Mr. Dangerfield?”
By the startled expression on Rollo’s face, Westenhanger saw that he had hit the mark. The old man was plainly astounded by the question. It was a few moments before he replied.
“You’re somewhere near it,” he admitted, looking distrustfully at the engineer. “How did you come to hit on that particular period?”
“Oh, just a guess,” said Westenhanger, lightly.
Rollo seemed in doubt as to what he should say next. Then evidently he felt it best to keep off a subject which he seemed to think a dangerous one.
“If you find the key-move of that chess-problem,” he said, changing the topic with obvious intention, “you might make a note of it and tell me what it is. We may as well enter it up in the archives.”
He smiled with little apparent amusement and left Westenhanger to his self-imposed task. The engineer plunged at once into the study of the chess-position. Two minutes’ scrutiny satisfied him on one point.
“That’s no normal chess problem,” he said to himself. “If it’s White to play, he can checkmate Black by simply taking that pawn with his bishop. The old Corinthian evidently was an expert, from what old Dangerfield told us; and no expert would trouble to put down a thing like this on paper. And, by the same reasoning, Rollo’s suggestion’s rubbish, too. There could be no conceivable dispute over a position of this sort. The merest beginner would see at a glance that Black has lost the game. The Corinthian would never have troubled to jot this down, if that was all the matter at stake.”
He looked at the diagram disgustedly.