The Chessmen of Doom (Johnny Dixon 07)

CHAPTER ONE

"Yes, my name is Childermass. And you are standing in my nasturtium bed. Kindly get your fat feet out of it, at once!"

It was a sunny mild May afternoon in the mid-1950's. Professor Roderick Childermass was sitting in a dirty yellow-and-green-striped lawn chair in the yard behind his house, and he was glaring at a young man who stood in an oblong bed of earth near the back porch. Professor Childermass was short, elderly, and cranky-looking. His nose was red and pitted, and his hair was white and unruly. Overgrown sideburns sprouted from both sides of his face, and his eyes glittered behind gold-rimmed spectacles. The young man wore the gray uniform of a post office employee, and in one hand he clutched a letter with a red-white-and-blue-striped sticker on it. With a sudden motion the postman extricated himself from the flower bed and held out the letter for the professor to take.

"Sorry, sir," he said apologetically. "I have a special-delivery letter here for you."

With a sigh the professor put down the glass of lemonade, heaved himself up out of the chair, and snatched the letter from the young man. "Special delivery, is it!" muttered the professor under his breath. "Hmm . . . well, thank you very much. Run along now." He made a shooing motion with his hand.

The young man muttered. Then he turned and left. The professor stuck his thumb under a corner of the envelope's flap and ripped. He pulled out the folded letter and shook it open with a single quick snap of his wrist. Then he began to read:
* * * *

My dear Roderick:

Greetings! By the time you get this, I will be in the next world, if there is one. My body will be in its tomb, or green and festering in its shroud, as Shakespeare would say. But let's not dwell on unpleasant details: I'm dead, and I've left my estate in Maine to you. There are conditions that must be fulfilled, but then you've guessed that by now, haven't you, you clever old cuss? In a few days a lawyer will be calling you to tell what you have to do to inherit my ten million smackeroos. In the meantime, in between time, let me just leave you with this thought:

Why a dead eye in a room with no view? Why pallid dwarves on a board that's not true? To pull the hairy stars from their nest. And give sinful humans a well-deserved test.

If you solve this riddle you may wish that you hadn't. Hard times are ahead for the cruel and heartless Lords of War.

Yours ever,

Peregrine P. Childermass

The professor sat staring at this odd letter for a long time. He hated mysterious notes, and the longer he thought about this one, the madder he got. Of course, he was sorry that Peregrine was dead, but he was also angry at his brother because Peregrine had decided to play some kind of insane trick on him. "Peregrine, if you were here and alive, I'd belt you one in the snoot! he muttered, as he sipped lemonade and tried to calm down. The professor did not mind the idea of inheriting ten million bucks, but he wondered what "conditions" his batty brother had in mind in order for him to get the money. As for the little poem that had come with the letter, he did not have the faintest idea of what it meant. Nothing, probably.

A few days later the professor was across the street having Sunday dinner with his friends the Dixons and their grandson, Johnny. The Dixons were an elderly couple who had lived in Duston Heights, Massachusetts, for many years. One day their grandson John had come to live with them, because his mother was dead and his dad was fighting in the Korean War. Johnny was a short blond boy who wore glasses. He was brainy and shy and had trouble getting people to like him. Strangely enough he got along fine with cranky old Professor Childermass, who terrified most people. The two of them had become friends a few seconds after they met, and now the old man was like a second father to Johnny. They played chess and baked cakes and discussed the problems of the world together. It was an odd friendship, but it worked.

At the Dixons' the professor rambled on about the letter he had gotten. He stuffed mashed potatoes and roast beef into his mouth and went on and on about his brother Peregrine and the rest of his nutty family. The professor's father had taught literature at Princeton, and he had named his sons for characters in the novels of Tobias Smollett. There was Roderick Random, and Peregrine Pickle, and Humphrey Clinker, and even Ferdinand Count Fathom, who usually signed his name F. C. F. Childermass. All of the Childermass boys had turned out to be pretty strange--except, of course, for the professor himself. He was perfectly normal--at least, he said so.

As the professor rattled on, Johnny kept thinking about the four-line poem and the words at the end of the letter about the heartless Lords of War.

"Professor," he said suddenly, when the old man had paused to take a drink of water, "who are the Lords of War? Is he talking about people who make guns and bombs?"

The professor shrugged. "I suppose so," he muttered, "though I really can't be sure what anything in that blasted letter means. Peregrine claims that the Lords of War are in for hard times. Maybe he read the tea leaves in the bottom of his cup and decided that an era of peace was coming to the world. Peregrine was one of those people who get very upset about the horrors of war, and he always said that there ought to be some way to frighten human beings into being peaceful. That's a nice notion, isn't it? But not very practical. Someday the earth may be peaceful, but unless an angel with a flaming sword appears in the sky, I don't see how it's going to happen."

Grampa Dixon was sitting at the head of the table. He was a tall, gaunt old man with saggy cheeks and gold-rimmed spectacles. Grampa was kindly and timid and he usually kept silent when the professor was ranting on about something. Finally, however, he spoke up.

"Rod," he asked suddenly, "are you gonna take Perry's money if they offer it to ya?"

The professor rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "It all depends," he said, "on what the conditions of his will are. If they ask me to sacrifice kittens on the altar of Baal, I probably won't take it. But if I have to put on a pink nightgown and run around town at midnight shouting, The British are coming! then I'll do it. We'll just have to see."

Later that evening Johnny was sitting in the professor's kitchen watching as the old man frosted a chocolate layer cake. The professor smeared dollop after dollop of rich fudge frosting. When the cake was done they were going to gorge on it, something they both very much enjoyed. But just as the professor was adding some more powdered sugar to the frosting in his mixing bowl, the phone rang. With the spatula in his hand he went over to the sideboard and picked up the receiver. The conversation that followed was punctuated by lots of "urns" and "ers" from the professor, but somehow Johnny figured out that the caller was somebody who had something to do with the late Peregrine Childermass's will. With a half-smothered curse the professor said goodbye and hung up. He turned to Johnny and sighed wearily.

"That was Perry's lawyer," he muttered, as he went back to the business of frosting the cake. "He told me the terms of Perry's idiotic will. It seems that I have to spend the summer--from June fifteenth till Labor Day-- at Perry's run-down estate and I have to cut the grass and whip the place into shape without any hired help. Ah, well! I suppose it won't kill me. Maybe it'll keep me from getting all flabby and pale-faced this summer."

"You mean you're gonna go?" asked Johnny eagerly.

The professor frowned and dipped his finger into the frosting. Slowly he lapped up the fudgy goo. "I'm not sure," he muttered. "Peregrine's lawyer is sending the papers to my lawyer, and then I can read all the small print. We shall see."

Several days passed, and during that time Johnny did not see the professor much. One afternoon when he was walking on Merrimack Street, the main street of the town, he saw the professor coming out of the law offices of McKillop and Ward. Johnny waved to him and the professor turned and smiled wearily.

"Greetings, John!" he said. "I have just been wading through unimaginable acres of legal nincompoopery, and I'm ready to go home and take a sleeping potion that will knock me out for three or four days. Aargh! Can't legal forms ever be simple? Why, I remember once when . . ."

On and on the professor rambled. Johnny was used to the old man's tirades, so he just walked beside him with an amused smile on his face. Finally, when the professor paused to catch his breath, Johnny spoke up.

"Professor," he asked, timidly, "are you gonna go up to your brother's place to stay this summer?"

The professor threw a quick, nervous look at Johnny. Then he smiled and nodded. "Yes, I suppose that I will. I have some misgivings about the whole business--fears, I suppose. I can't put it into words, but that wacky poem of Perry's has been on my mind night and day since I got his letter, and I can't help feeling that there is something sinister about it. But then, I've always been a worrier--I expect the worst things to happen, and when they don't I'm always surprised. Nevertheless, I would be crazy to turn down ten million clams because of groundless fears. Right?"

Johnny said nothing--he just shrugged. They had reached the professor's car. But before they got in, the old man laid a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"John," the professor asked, "do you suppose . . . that is, would you and Byron like to come up with me on this trip? It might be fun for the two of you."