I arrived at the Bagatelle a little after seven. Early enough to see the room before it settled, late enough not to draw comment. The porter nodded me through and I made my way to the rear, where the card room sits removed from the bar and the general noise of the place.
Four tables were going. At the far end, under the lamp, I found Hargreaves already installed with Caldwell opposite him and two chairs waiting.
“Moran,” Hargreaves said, looking up. “Good. Sit down, we need a fourth.”
Ellison completed the table. A quiet fellow, Ellison. Predictable, which suited me well enough.
The cards were brought and I took my time looking them over. Nobody thinks anything of it. Men always check for marked or damaged cards, it’s expected. What I was actually doing was rather more specific. Three cards in the deck had minor imperfections, not deliberate, simply the result of previous handling. The nine of diamonds had warped very slightly along its long edge. The two of clubs had gone pale at one corner where the dye had thinned. The jack of spades was marginally stiffer than the cards around it. None of it amounted to much on its own. Across an evening’s play it would be enough.
Hargreaves dealt first.
I watched his hands. He was a confident dealer, if not a precise one, and he had a habit I suspect he’d never once noticed in himself. When he held strength in the suit he intended to lead, he squared his cards once before play began. When he was uncertain, he squared them twice. Twenty years of whist had put it there and twenty more wouldn’t shift it.
I said nothing and filed it away.
The first hand I played cautiously, giving little away and using the time to get the measure of Caldwell. He was a frontrunner and led from strength early, grew careful only when things went against him. No great mystery there. Hargreaves and Caldwell took the majority of tricks. A natural result and I had no objection to it.
“Our evening, I think,” Hargreaves said pleasantly.
“We’ll see,” I said.
Caldwell dealt next, gathered the cards and shuffled with more enthusiasm than control, then pushed the deck across for me to cut. I settled my fingers along the side of it quite naturally, feeling for the nine of diamonds. It was there, near the upper third, the slight resistance of the curved edge unmistakable if you knew what you were looking for. I cut just below it.
When Caldwell dealt out, I had a reasonable idea where the nine would land. Not a certainty. Good enough.
It went to Hargreaves, as I’d expected.
He squared his cards once before leading. Strength, then, or near enough. He opened with clubs and Caldwell took the trick. I discarded low and watched. Clubs were sitting heavily with my opponents, which was useful to know.
As the hand developed I hung back, letting Caldwell believe he had the better of things. When the nine of diamonds surfaced in Hargreaves’s hand it confirmed what I’d already suspected about his distribution. He was holding diamonds and leading into them with more confidence than was warranted.
Uncertainty, properly encouraged, becomes a weakness.
By the fifth trick I had a working picture of where everything lay. Not complete, but sufficient to act on. I began to push where I’d previously been cautious, forcing Hargreaves to show more than he’d intended. Caldwell read it wrongly, took my aggression for genuine strength and committed himself accordingly.
Three tricks came back to us that had no business doing so.
Ellison said something quietly approving. I told him it was simply a matter of adjustment.
Caldwell said nothing, but he put his remaining cards down with a deliberateness that had nothing to do with the cards themselves. He wasn’t suspicious. He was going back over the hand in his head, trying to find where he’d gone wrong. There is a difference between a man who doubts you and a man who doubts himself, and it matters considerably.
My deal came third.
I’ve been shuffling cards for the better part of thirty years and it looks exactly as it should; two riffles, a strip cut, a final riffle, thorough and unremarkable. What it doesn’t look like is what it actually is, which is a shuffle that preserves the relative order of the bottom six cards while appearing to disturb them entirely. The adjustment is in the pressure of the thumbs and is quite invisible to anyone who doesn’t already know to look for it, which no one at that table did.
I offered the deck to Caldwell to cut.
He cut too shallow, as he’d been doing all evening. It’s a habit, like any other. Men who cut shallowly almost invariably do so every time, and Caldwell was no exception. The six cards I’d arranged stayed within a range I could account for.
I dealt cleanly, nothing to attract attention, and turned the last card face up as the rules require. The nine of clubs. Trumps established.
Not ideal. Workable.
Caldwell went into trumps aggressively from the off. I let the first two tricks go without a fight; resisting would have told him more than I wanted him to know. On the third I came back in and immediately shifted to hearts, leading at middle strength rather than high, which is an invitation of sorts. Hargreaves squared his cards once, which told me what I needed to know, and led into it with everything he had. Caldwell hesitated, then followed.