clarity is either lacking or unwelcome. I read it once, and then again. There was no mention of anything beyond the immediate affair. No suggestion that it formed part of a larger design. It was presented as an isolated incident, of no great consequence. Such things rarely are. I gave it no further thought. The cigar had burned halfway down. I drew on it, held the smoke, and let it out slowly. There is a rhythm to it. One action follows another. Each measured. Each the same. This afternoon I visited my publisher. I spoke to the editor about revisions needed for the book that I was writing about my eastern adventures before returning to my rooms.
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