The Secrets of the Chess Machine by Robert Löhr

Author:Robert Löhr [Löhr, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141919553
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2008-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

Most of the people of Pressburg saw the widow Jesenak’s death as a scandal but not a riddle: the baroness had always been a moody character, even more given to melancholy than the rest of her melancholic countrymen. The number of Ibolya’s friends had been limited: men were divided into those who had been involved in a liaison with her and wanted to keep it secret and those who had rejected her advances, and both groups avoided contact with her. Women had feared her as a rival and punished her with contempt. Only her brother, Janos Baron Andrássy, was still close to her at the end; malicious tongues even spread rumours that brother and sister had loved each other with more than just their minds – a rumour as unfounded, incidentally, as it was dangerous, considering the propensity of the lieutenant of hussars for fighting duels.

It was certain that, since her husband’s death, Ibolya Jesenak had been merry only when she was drunk. Her farewell was that empty champagne glass on the balustrade. She had thought of the sorrows of her lonely life that night and killed herself in a drunken daze.

The alternative theory was put forward by only a few, but those few stuck to it with particular tenacity: in their view, the chess-playing Turk had pushed the baroness off the balcony to her death. This group did not bother about the undoubted difficulty of explainingjust how the crime had been committed – for after all, the automaton was nailed to its cabinet and could move only its head, its eyes and one arm. Instead, the proponents of the theory dwelt on the strong motives it had for murder. Primo, the automaton was a Turk and the baroness a Hungarian, and all Turks wished to see all Hungarians dead. Secundo, Andrássy had wrested a draw from the Turk, so the automaton avenged itself for the affront by taking from Andrássy what he held most dear, his sister. Tertio and last, the widow Jesenak’s affair with Wolfgang von Kempelen was an open secret among the nobility of Pressburg. Furthermore, the two of them had been seen quarrelling in the Hall of Angels not half an hour before Ibolya’s death – ergo, Kempelen had commanded his creature to rid him of the rejected mistress of whom he had tired.

In support of the theory that the Turk was a murderer was news that soon arrived from Marienthal: the old teacher who had also drawn a game against the chess-playing Turk a few weeks earlier had now died too – of smallpox, to be sure, not by violence, but that didn’t seem to make any difference. In any case, several people concluded from this event that the Turk would punish any opponent who dared to defy it with death, or with the death of a beloved relation. There was talk of ‘the Curse of the Turk’, and many who had felt mortified immediately after their defeat by the chess machine now congratulated themselves on the lack of talent that had preserved them from the Turk’s fatal curse.

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