Nearly every night for more than a hundred and fifty years there had been just such a scene, he reflected, in this famous room. The same cries of victory and defeat, the same dedicated faces, the same smell of tobacco and drama. For Bond, who loved gambling, it was the most exciting spectacle in the world. He gave it a last glance to fix it all in his mind and then he turned back to his table.

He picked up his cards and his eyes glittered. For once, on Drax’s deal, he had a cast-iron game hand; seven spades with the four top honours, the ace of hearts, and the ace, king of diamonds. He looked at Drax. Had he and Meyer got the clubs? Even so Bond could overbid. Would Drax try and force him too high and risk a double? Bond waited.

“No bid,” said Drax, unable to keep the bitterness of his private knowledge of Bond’s hand out of his voice.

“Four spades,” said Bond.

No bid from Meyer; from M.; reluctantly from Drax.

M. provided some help, and they made five.

One hundred and fifty points below the line. A hundred above for honours.

“Humph,” said a voice at Bond’s elbow. He looked up. It was Basildon. His game had finished and he had strolled over to see what was happening on this separate battlefield.

He picked up Bond’s score-sheet and looked at it.

“That was a bit of a beetle-crusher,” he said cheerfully. “Seems you’re holding the champions. What are the stakes?”

Bond left the answer to Drax. He was glad of the diversion. It could not have been better timed. Drax had cut the blue cards to him. He married the two halves and put the pack just in front of him, near the edge of the table.

“Fifteen and fifteen. On my left,” said Drax.

Bond heard Basildon draw in his breath.

“Chap seemed to want to gamble, so I accommodated him. Now he goes and gets all the cards…”

Drax grumbled on.

Across the table, M. saw a white handkerchief materialize in Bond’s right hand. M.’s eyes narrowed. Bond seemed to wipe his face with it. M. saw him glance sharply at Drax and Meyer, then the handkerchief was back in his pocket.

A blue pack was in Bond’s hands and he had started to ‘ deal.

“That’s the hell of a stake,” said Basildon. “We once had a thousand-pound side-bet on a game of bridge. But that was in the rubber boom before the ‘fourteen-eighteen war. Hope nobody’s going to get hurt.” He meant it. Very high stakes in a private game generally led to trouble. He walked round and stood between M. and Drax.

Bond completed the deal. With a touch of anxiety he picked up his cards.

He had nothing but five clubs to the ace, queen, ten, and eight small diamonds to the queen.

It was all right. The trap was set.

He almost felt Drax stiffen as the big man thumbed through his cards, and then, unbelieving, thumbed them through again. Bond knew that Drax had an incredibly good hand. Ten certain tricks, the ace, king of diamonds, the four top honours in spades, the four top honours in hearts, and the king, knave, nine of clubs.

Bond had dealt them to him-in the Secretary’s room before dinner.

Bond waited, wondering how Drax would react to the huge hand. He took an almost cruel interest in watching the greedy fish come to the lure.

Drax exceeded his expectations.

Casually he folded his hand and laid it on the table. Nonchalantly he took the flat carton out of his pocket, selected a cigarette and lit it. He didn’t look at Bond. He glanced up at Basildon.

“Yes,” he said, continuing the conversation about their stakes. “It’s a high game, but not the highest I’ve ever played. Once played for two thousand a rubber in Cairo. At the Mahomet Ali as a matter of fact. They’ve really got guts there. Often bet on every trick as well as on the game and rubber. “Now,” he picked up his hand and looked slyly at Bond. “I’ve got some good tickets here. I’ll admit it. But then you may have too, for all I know.” (Unlikely, you old shark, thought Bond, with three of the ace-kings in your own ‘ hand.) “Care to have something extra just on this hand?”

Bond made a show of studying his cards with the minuteness of someone who is nearly very drunk. “I’ve got a promising lot too,” he said thickly. “If my partner fits and the cards lie right I might make a lot of tricks myself. What are you suggesting?”

“Sounds as if we’re pretty evenly matched,” lied Drax. “What do you say to a hundred a trick on the side? From what you say it shouldn’t be too painful.”

Bond looked thoughtful and rather fuddled. He took another careful look at his hand, running through the cards one by one. “All right,” he said. “You’re on. And frankly you’ve made me gamble. You’ve obviously got a big hand, so I must shut you out and chance it.”

Bond looked blearily across at M. “Pay your losses on this one, partner,” he said. “Here we go. Er-seven clubs.”

In the dead silence that followed, Basildon, who had seen Drax’s hand, was so startled that he dropped his whisky and soda on the floor. He looked dazedly down at the broken glass and let it lie.

Drax said “What?” in a startled voice and hastily ran through his cards again for reassurance.

“Did you say grand slam in clubs?” he asked, looking curiously at his obviously drunken opponent, “Well, it’s your funeral. What do you say, Max?”

“No bid,” said Meyer, feeling in the air the electricity of just that crisis he had hoped to avoid. Why the hell hadn’t he gone home before this last rubber? He groaned inwardly.

“No bid,” said M. apparently unperturbed. “Double.” The word came viciously out of Drax’s mouth. He put down his hand and looked cruelly, scornfully at this tipsy oaf who had at last, inexplicably, fallen into his hands. “That mean you double the side-bets too?” asked Bond. “Yes,” said Drax greedily. “Yes. That’s what I meant.”

“All right,” said Bond. He paused. He looked at Drax and not at his hand. “Redouble. The contract and the side-bets. £400 a trick on the side.”

It was at that moment that the first hint of a dreadful, incredible doubt entered Drax’s mind. But again he looked at his hand, and again he was reassured. At the very worst he couldn’t fail to make two tricks.

A muttered “No bid” from Meyer. A rather strangled “No bid” from M. An impatient shake of the head from Drax.

Basildon stood, his face very pale, looking intently across the table at Bond.

Then he walked slowly round the table, scrutinizing all the hands. What he saw was this:

And suddenly Basildon understood. It was a laydown Grand Slam for Bond against any defence. Whatever Meyer led, Bond must get in with a trump in his own hand or on the table. Then, in between clearing trumps, finessing of course against Drax, he would play two rounds of diamonds, trumping them in dummy and catching Drax’s ace and king in the process. After five plays he would be left with the remaining trumps and six winning diamonds. Drax’s aces and kings would be totally valueless.

It was sheer murder.

Basildon, almost in a trance, continued round the table and stood between M. and Meyer so that he could watch Drax’s face, and Bond’s. His own face was impassive, but his hands, which he had stuffed into his trouser pockets so that they would not betray him, were sweating. He waited, almost fearfully, for the terrible punishment that Drax was about to receive-thirteen separate lashes whose scars no card-player would ever lose.

“Come along, come along,” said Drax impatiently. “Lead something, Max. Can’t be here all night.”

You poor fool, thought Basildon. In ten minutes you’ll wish that Meyer had died in his chair before he could pull out that first card.

In fact, Meyer looked as if at any moment he might have a stroke. He was deathly pale, and the perspiration was dropping off his chin on to his shirt front. For all he knew, his first card might be a disaster.

At last, reasoning that Bond might be void in his own long suits, spades and hearts, he led the knave of diamonds.

It made no difference what he led, but when M.’s hand went down showing chicane in diamonds, Drax snarled across at his partner. “Haven’t you got anything else, you dam’ fool? Want to hand it to him on a plate? Whose side are you on, anyway?”

Meyer cringed into his clothes. “Best I could do, Hugger,” he said miserably, wiping his face with his handkerchief.

But by this time Drax had got his own worries.

Bond trumped on the table, catching Drax’s king of diamonds, and promptly led a club. Drax put up his nine. Bond took it with his ten and led a diamond, trumping it on the table. Drax’s ace fell. Another club from the table, catching Drax’s knave.

Then the ace of clubs.

As Drax surrendered his king, for the first time he saw what” might be happening. His eyes squinted anxiously at Bond, waiting fearfully for the next card. Had Bond got the diamonds? Hadn’t Meyer got them guarded? After all, he had opened with them. Drax waited, his cards slippery with sweat.

Morphy, the great chess player, had a terrible habit. He would never raise his eyes from the game until he knew his opponent could not escape defeat. Then he would slowly lift his great head and gaze curiously at the man across the board. His opponent would feel the gaze and would slowly, humbly raise his eyes to meet Morphy’s. At that moment he would know that it was no good continuing the game. The eyes of Morphy said so. There was nothing left but surrender.

Now, like Morphy, Bond lifted his head and looked straight into Drax’s eyes. Then he slowly drew out the queen of diamonds and placed it on the table. Without waiting for Meyer to play he followed it, deliberately, with the 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, and the two winning clubs.

Then he spoke. “That’s all, Drax,” he said quietly, and sat slowly back in his chair.

Drax’s first reaction was to lurch forward and tear Meyer’s cards out of his hand. He faced them on the table, scrabbling feverishly among them for a possible winner.

Then he flung them back across the baize.

His face was dead white, but his eyes blazed redly at Bond. Suddenly he raised one clenched fist and crashed it on the table among the pile of impotent aces and kings and queens in front of him.

Very low, he spat the words at Bond. “You’re a che…”

“That’s enough, Drax.” Basildon’s voice came across the table like a whiplash. “None of that talk here. I’ve been watching the whole game. Settle up. If you’ve got any complaints, put them in writing to the Committee.”

Drax got slowly to his feet. He stood away from his chair and ran a hand through his wet red hair. The colour came slowly back into his face and with it an expression of cunning. He glanced down at Bond and there was in his good eye a contemptuous triumph which Bond found curiously disturbing.

He turned to the table. “Good night, gentlemen,” he said, looking at each of them with the same oddly scornful expression. “I owe about £15,000. I will accept Meyer’s addition.”

He leant forward and picked up his cigarette-case and lighter.

Then he looked again at Bond and spoke very quietly, the red moustache lifting slowly from the splayed upper teeth. “I should spend the money quickly, Commander Bond,” he said.