The Collected Short Stories Read online

  “Perhaps you should sit down and write one of them for me?” I said politely.

  “Heaven forbid, you must be sick of being told that there’s a book in every one of us, so I hasten to assure you that there isn’t one in me.”

  I laughed, as I found it refreshing not to be informed by a new acquaintance that his memoirs, if only he could find the time to write them, would overnight be one of the world’s best sellers.

  “Perhaps there’s a story in you, but you’re just not aware of it,” I suggested.

  “If that’s the case, I’m afraid it’s passed me by.”

  Mr. Shrimpton reemerged from behind the row of little tin cubicles and handed me back my towel. He was now fully dressed and stood, I would have guessed, a shade under six feet. He wore a Wall Street banker’s pinstripe suit and, although he was nearly bald, he had a remarkable physique for a man who must have been well into his sixties. Only his thick white mustache gave away his true age, and would have been more in keeping with a retired English colonel than a New York banker.

  “Are you going to be in New York long?” he inquired, as he took a small leather case from his inside pocket and removed a pair of half-moon glasses and placed them on the end of his nose.

  “Just for the week.”

  “I don’t suppose you’re free for lunch tomorrow, by any chance?” he inquired, peering over the top of his glasses.

  “Yes, I am. I certainly can’t face another meal with that agent.”

  “Good, good, then why don’t you join me and I can follow the continuing drama of capturing the elusive American author?”

  “And perhaps I’ll discover there is a story in you after all.”

  “Not a hope,” he said, “you would be backing a loser if you depend on that,” and once again he offered his hand. “One o’clock, members’ dining room suit you?”

  “One o’clock, members’ dining room,” I repeated.

  As he left the locker room I walked over to the mirror and. straightened my tie. I was dining that night with Eric McKenzie, a publishing friend, who had originally proposed me for membership of the club. To be accurate, Eric McKenzie was a friend of my father rather than myself. They had met just before the war while on vacation in Portugal and when I was elected to the club, soon after my father’s retirement, Eric took it upon himself to have dinner with me whenever I was in New York. One’s parents’ generation never see one as anything but a child who will always be in need of constant care and attention. As he was a contemporary of my father, Eric must have been nearly seventy and, although hard of hearing and slightly bent, he was always amusing and good company, even if he did continually ask me if I was aware that his grandfather was Scottish.

  As I strapped on my watch, I checked that he was due to arrive in a few minutes. I put on my jacket and strolled out into the hall to find that he was already there, waiting for me. Eric was killing time by reading the out-of-date club notices. Americans, I have observed, can always be relied upon to arrive early or late; never on time. I stood staring at the stooping man, whose hair but for a few strands had now turned silver. His three-piece suit had a button missing on the jacket, which reminded me that his wife had died last year. After another thrust-out hand and exchange of welcomes, we took the elevator to the second floor and walked to the dining room.

  The members’ dining room at the Metropolitan differs little from any other men’s club. It has a fair sprinkling of old leather 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 hands.

  “Harry Newman,” continued Eric, now almost hidden in smoke, “was the fellow who beat Edward Shrimpton in the final of the club championship that year, although in truth he was never in the same class as Edward.”

  “Do explain,” I said, as I looked up at the board to check that it was Newman’s name that preceded Edward Shrimpton’s.

  “Well,” said Eric, “after the semifinal, which Edward had won with consummate ease, we all assumed the final