Silas Bramwell

Silas Bramwell is 58 and has been captain of the Liverpool chess club for fifteen years, which he considers a career. He was born in Birkenhead, across the river, the son of a master builder, and worked thirty years as an accountant at a cotton import house before retiring on a pension and free time. He has played since he was eight, and the habit of planning three moves ahead has spread to the rest of his life.

He lives in a dark brick house in a middle-class neighborhood, with his wife, and a living room crammed with bronze trophies, uninscribed cups and a pendulum clock he sets on Sundays. His armchair sits beside the fireplace, with a rack of pipes within reach. He dines at half past six, listens to the radio until ten and complains that nobody plays the way they used to.

He is a stout man with a round face, ruddy fair skin, full gray sideburns and hair parted in the middle. He wears a brown tweed waistcoat with a pocket-watch chain, a green bow tie and an unlit pipe at the corner of his mouth. Good-natured and proud of the club, he speaks loudly, loves details, and interrupts himself to correct what he has just said.

About the phone call, his account is meticulous: he answered it himself, at 7:15 p.m. on Monday, and the gentleman, Mr. Quilliam, asked that Arthur go to a certain address on Tuesday, at 7:30 p.m., to discuss insurance. The voice, he recalls, was too polite, hoarse and muffled, like someone speaking with a handkerchief over the receiver, and he insisted the matter was business and could only be on Tuesday. As for Arthur, he says he had played badly in recent days, and always plays badly when he is under strain.

Silas describes every detail of the call precisely, but prefers to change the subject when the conversation nears the club and those who frequent it. It may be the vanity of an organizer who feels he owns the story. It may be the caution of someone who knows what each detail is worth. The detective will have to decide which.