“And at half past ten, I think you said, Mr. Drukker and Mr. Pardee went away. Did they go together?”
“They went down-stairs together,” the professor answered, with more than a suggestion of tartness. “Drukker, I believe, went home; but Pardee had an appointment at the Manhattan Chess Club.”
“It seems a bit early for Mr. Drukker to have gone home,” mused Vance, “especially as he had come to discuss an important matter with you and had had no adequate opportunity to do so up to the time of his departure.”
“Drukker is not well.” The professor’s voice was again studiously patient. “As I’ve told you, he tires easily. And last night he was unusually played out. In fact, he complained to me of his fatigue and said he was going immediately to bed.”
“Yes . . . quite in keeping,” murmured Vance. “He told us a little while ago that he was up working at six yesterday morning.”
“I’m not surprised. Once a problem has posed itself in his mind he works on it incessantly. Unfortunately he has no normal reactions to counterbalance his consuming passion for mathematics. There have been times when I’ve feared for his mental stability.”
Vance, for some reason, steered clear of this point.
“You spoke of Mr. Pardee’s engagement at the Chess Club last night,” he said, when he had carefully lighted a fresh cigarette. “Did he mention the nature of it to you?”
Professor Dillard smiled with patronizing lenity.
“He talked about it for fully an hour. It appears that a gentleman named Rubinstein—a genius of the chess world, I understand, who is now visiting this country—had taken him on for three exhibition games. The last one was yesterday. It began at two o’clock, and was postponed at six. It should have been played off at eight, but Rubinstein was the lion of some dinner down-town; so the hour set for the play-off was eleven. Pardee was on tenter-hooks, for he had lost the first game and drawn the second; and if he could have won last night’s game he would have broken even with Rubinstein. He seemed to think he had an excellent chance according to the way the game stood at six o’clock; although Drukker disagreed with him. . . . He must have gone directly from here to the club, for it was fully half past ten when he and Drukker went out.”