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By Root 2285 0

chairs, old carpets, old portraits, and old members. A waiter guided us to a corner table that overlooked Central Park. We ordered, and then settled back to discuss all the subjects I found I usually cover with an acquaintance I only have the chance to catch up with a couple of times a year—our families, children; mutual friends, work; baseball and cricket. By the time we had reached cricket we had also reached coffee, so we strolled down to the far end of the room and made ourselves comfortable in two well-worn leather chairs. When the coffee arrived I ordered two brandies and watched Eric unwrap a large Cuban cigar. Although they displayed a West Indian band on the outside, I knew they were Cuban because I had picked them up for him from a tobacconist in St. James’s, Piccadilly, which specializes in changing the labels for its American customers. I have often thought that they must be the only shop in the world that changes labels with the sole purpose of making a superior product appear inferior. I am certain my wine merchant does it the other way round.

While Eric was attempting to light the cigar, my eyes wandered to a board on the wall. To be more accurate, it was a highly polished wooden plaque with oblique golden lettering painted on it, honoring those men who over the years had won the club’s backgammon championship. I glanced idly down the list, not expecting to see anybody with whom I would be familiar, when I was brought up by the name of Edward Shrimpton. Once in the late thirties he had been the runner-up.

“That’s interesting,” I said.

“What is?” asked Eric, now wreathed in enough smoke to have puffed himself out of Grand Central Station.

“Edward Shrimpton was runner-up in the club’s backgammon championship in the late thirties. I’m having lunch with him tomorrow.”

“I didn’t realize you knew him.”

“I didn’t until this afternoon,” I said, and then explained how we had met.

Eric laughed and turned to stare up at the board. Then he added, rather mysteriously: “That’s a night I’m never likely to forget.”

“Why?” I asked.

Eric hesitated, and looked uncertain of himself before continuing: “Too much water has passed under the bridge for anyone to care now.” He paused again, as a hot piece of ash fell to the floor and added to the burn marks that made their own private pattern in the carpet. “Just before the war Edward Shrimpton was among the best half dozen backgammon players in the world. In fact, it must have been around that time he won the unofficial world championship in Monte Carlo.”

“And he couldn’t win the club championship?”

“‘Couldn’t’ would be the wrong word, dear boy. ‘Didn’t’ might be more accurate.” Eric lapsed into another preoccupied silence.

“Are you going to explain?” I asked, hoping he would continue, “or am I to be left like a child who wants to know who killed Cock Robin?”

“All in good time, but first allow me to get this damn cigar started.”

I remained silent, and four matches later, he said, “Before I begin, take a look at the man sitting over there in the corner with the young blond.”

I turned and glanced back toward the dining room area, and saw a man attacking a porterhouse steak. He looked about the same age as Eric and wore a smart new suit that was unable to disguise that he had a weight problem: only his tailor could have smiled at him with any pleasure. He was seated opposite a slight, not unattractive strawberry blond half his age who could have trodden on a beetle and failed to crush it.

“What an unlikely pair. Who are they?”

“Harry Newman and his fourth wife. They’re always the same. The wives I mean—blond hair, blue eyes,. ninety pounds, and dumb. I can never understand why any man gets divorced only to marry a carbon copy of the original”

“Where does Edward Shrimpton fit into the jigsaw?” I asked, trying to guide Eric back on to the subject.

“Patience, patience,” said my host, as he relit his cigar for the second time. “At your age you’ve far more time to waste than I have”

I laughed and picked up the cognac nearest to me and swirled the brandy around in my cupped