Last Writes Read online

  The superintendent sighed. ‘So what you’re saying, Sloan, is that if they both clam up, it’s best for them.’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  Leeyes said, ‘Which series of theoretical propositions, Sloan, I may say is exactly what William Langland in his book The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman called Do-Well, Do-Better and Do-Best.’

  ‘Really, sir?’ That must have come from the ill-fated evening course that the superintendent had attended on ‘Early English Literature’ – until, that is, he had fallen out with the lecturer over the matter of the lady fair in the traditional old ballad ‘The Twa Corbies’ who had ignored the body of her new-slain knight lying in the dyke and ta’en another mate. Criminal behaviour, the superintendent had called it, not prepared to hold that ‘The Twa Corbies’ was allegorical as well as poetic.

  ‘Of course,’ the superintendent went on thoughtfully, ‘the pair of ’em might not know what’s best for them.’

  ‘Exactly, sir. The other thing they probably don’t know is that the next best thing is for each of them to shop the other.’

  ‘Well, they wouldn’t, would they?’ said Leeyes. ‘Know that, I mean.’

  ‘Not in the ordinary way – that is, unless they’d taken advice on the matter.’

  Leeyes pounced like a cat on a mouse.

  ‘Anyone who gave them that sort of advice would be in trouble.’

  ‘I suppose, sir,’ said Sloan hastily, ‘they could have always agreed their best course of action beforehand.’

  ‘In my experience,’ said the superintendent loftily, ‘the only thing crooks usually agree on beforehand is the division of the spoils and then they go and fall out over it afterwards.’

  For one heady moment Detective Inspector Sloan considered bringing Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’ into the discussion since that, too, was concerned with the criminal distribution of the spoils of crime but he dismissed the thought just as quickly. The superintendent might well have abandoned his study of Early English Literature before they’d got to The Canterbury Tales. ‘I understand, sir,’ he advanced cautiously instead, ‘it’s what the psychologists call the Prisoner’s Dilemma.’

  Sloan held his breath before he carried on since mention of psychologists was inclined to upset the superintendent. ‘It’s the paradox of a game between two contestants, sir,’ he said hurriedly, ‘in which one person’s loss is not necessarily the other’s gain.’

  ‘Medal play in golf,’ responded the superintendent immediately. ‘It doesn’t help your score if the man you’re playing with shoots his ball into a water hazard. It’s the course you’re up against.’

  ‘Er – quite so, sir,’ said Sloan, not a golfer.

  ‘Give me a “for instance”,’ ordered Leeyes, sounding unconvinced. ‘And you needn’t say the game of Rubber Bridge.’

  ‘Roulette,’ said Sloan on the spur of the moment.

  ‘The banker always wins,’ said Leeyes sourly.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Sloan, adding, ‘They call it the non-zero-sum, by the way.’

  ‘I call it a waste of time,’ said the superintendent, ‘and I’m too busy to go in to the ins and outs of it just now. Keep me in the picture though, Sloan … and let me know who shops who.’

  ‘If either of them does,’ Sloan reminded him. ‘Or both.’

  ‘That might be the Prisoner’s Dilemma, Sloan, but if neither of them sing, then I’m afraid it’s ours.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And, Sloan …’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Make sure the best man wins.’

  THE QUEEN OF HEARTS

  ‘We must be very careful about what we do about this,’ said the secretary of the Berebury Bridge Club. ‘Very careful. Remember Tranby Croft.’

  ‘Who was he?’ asked the director.

  ‘It wasn’t a he,’ said the secretary. ‘It was a place. A house where a man was accused of cheating at cards. Baccarat, as it happens. It’s a French game and it all ended in tears.’ He pushed his glasses back up his nose. ‘Well, in court, actually.’

  ‘Don’t like the sound of that,’ said the club’s chairman, edging his coffee cup to one side. The committee was meeting in his dining room.

  ‘Moreover, it was with the Prince of Wales giving evidence,’ said the secretary. ‘The one who became Edward VII.’

  ‘Tum Tum,’ said the chairman.

  The others stared at him.

  ‘That’s what they called him,’ said the chairman, whose own corporation was on the generous side. ‘Liked good food.’ He picked up a plate and looked round. ‘Another biscuit, anyone? I don’t like the sound of court at all.’

  ‘And I don’t like the idea of anyone cheating here in our club in Berebury,’ growled the director.

  ‘And getting away with it,’ chimed in the secretary.

  ‘They haven’t got away with it if we know about it,’ pointed out the director.

  ‘They have if we let them go on doing it,’ said the secretary energetically.

  ‘Get away with what, exactly?’ asked the chairman. ‘I need to know if I’ve got to take a view.’

  ‘I’ve taken one,’ said the director flatly.

  The chairman suppressed a sigh. The director was inclined to take the football match view – the old-fashioned one, anyway – that the referee was right even when he was wrong and as far as the Berebury Bridge Club was concerned, the director was the referee.

  ‘Suppose you give me the facts,’ the chairman suggested. ‘All I seem to remember is hearing that there had been a problem with a finesse at a match at the club last week. Is that what you’re all talking about?’

  ‘You weren’t here at the time,’ said the director pointedly. ‘Holiday or business or something like that.’

  The chairman ignored both his tone and the implied criticism and said, ‘Go on.’

  ‘It was someone …’ began the director.

  ‘Better just call them North,’ advised the chairman cautiously, ‘to be on the safe side.’

  ‘Oh, all right, then, North it shall be,’ acquiesced the director readily enough. ‘It was like this, chairman. If he was North then it was East and West who were in a contract of four spades and I can tell you it was a bit iffy.’

  ‘For one thing,’ amplified the secretary, ‘East had only given West, who was the dealer, a small raise on his opening bid of one spade. It was West who went on to a game contract in spite of that.’

  ‘Not a lay-down then,’ said the chairman, nodding his understanding.

  ‘But West is a good player and knew what he was doing,’ said the secretary.

  ‘Such as finessing the Jack of Hearts,’ said director. ‘I know that because I was there.’

  ‘So?’ said the chairman, a man chosen for his eminent tact, discretion and good sense. ‘I wasn’t, so tell me.’

  ‘I had told you that dummy wasn’t all that wonderful, hadn’t I?’ said the director. ‘Anyway, it was near the end of play. The Ace and Queen of Hearts were on the table – and the contract hung on either the Queen or the Jack making, all the trumps being out by then.’

  ‘The lead was in West’s hand at the time,’ added the secretary, ‘and he had the Jack of Hearts.’

  ‘Not exactly a tenace, then,’ nodded the chairman.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked the secretary sharply.

  ‘The combination in one hand of the cards next above and next below the other side’s best in the suit,’ explained the chairman. ‘From the Spanish for pincers.’

  ‘As I was trying to say,’ interrupted the director, ‘West leads the Jack of Hearts from his own hand up to the Ace and Queen on the table, naturally hoping that North will cover the Jack with his King.’

  ‘Which he could only have done if he held it, though,’ pointed out the chairman.

  ‘Exactly,’ said the secretary. ‘That’s the nub of the matter.’

  ‘Which King of Hearts,’ carried on the director, not d
eflected, ‘could then be taken by the Ace, thus making dummy’s Queen good.’

  ‘Which Queen of Hearts West would subsequently play from dummy when it suited him,’ finished the secretary.

  ‘And thus making the contract,’ said the director.

  The chairman said, ‘So if West played the Jack to dummy to finesse it and South and not North had the King and he puts it on the Jack and takes the trick, West loses the contract? That it?’

  ‘It is. Although of course the Queen would be good after that, West doesn’t make his contract and doesn’t collect a lot of points. If my memory serves me right East/West were vulnerable at the time.’

  ‘But not doubled,’ said the director quickly. ‘That would have made a big difference to the play in any finesse. West could have had some idea of where the King was if the contract had been doubled.’

  ‘Only, that is,’ pointed out the secretary pedantically, ‘if the double had come from the stronger hand. Of course everyone knows that it’s always better if it’s the weaker hand that does the doubling.’

  ‘And so,’ said the chairman, never one to waste time, ‘who did have the King of Hearts then?’

  ‘That was the funny thing,’ said the director. ‘South had it and didn’t put it on.’

  ‘So West made his contract,’ chimed in the secretary.

  ‘Exactly,’ said the director.

  ‘Saving our bacon, if you ask me,’ said the secretary, who hadn’t liked the sound of Tranby Croft.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t South play his King?’ asked the chairman. ‘He gets the others down if he does.’

  ‘I think,’ said the director, choosing his words with some care, ‘it was because he’d noticed that North hesitated before he played a low heart.’

  ‘West must have noticed it, too,’ said the chairman logically, ‘which is presumably why he felt confident about going ahead with the finesse.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said the director, bringing his fist down on his other hand.

  ‘And I say that’s cheating,’ insisted the secretary. ‘On North’s part, I mean.’

  ‘Worse than that, he fingered a different card before he played a low one,’ said the director, ‘and South must have seen that as well as West.’

  ‘That’s cheating, too,’ said the secretary.

  ‘Misleading body language, that’s what I say it was,’ muttered the director, ‘and it shouldn’t be allowed.’

  ‘I think you mean condoned but do go on,’ said the chairman, who also served on the local Bench of Magistrates, and had learnt early on there not to pass judgement until he had heard the whole story, let alone both sides of it.

  ‘And we – that is, I – think North did all that in order that West would think that he had the King even though he didn’t and would therefore run the Jack through, leaving the Ace and the Queen on the table, thinking it safe to do so …’

  ‘To be taken by South’s King?’ said the chairman intelligently.

  ‘Which North must have known South was holding because he hadn’t got it himself,’ said the director.

  ‘And if West had had it in his own hand he wouldn’t have had to try a finesse?’ said the chairman. ‘That’s so, too, isn’t it?’

  ‘Bingo,’ said the secretary inappropriately.

  ‘And thus make the contract fail,’ concluded the director, ‘and whatever you all say, I say that that’s cheating.’

  ‘I’ve always believed the best way to win at Bridge is never to say anything except “no bid” or “double”, especially if there’s drink on the table,’ remarked the chairman inconsequentially.

  The director’s colour rose alarmingly. ‘I would certainly not permit that, chairman. Not calling to your hand is quite reprehensible and certainly not cricket.’

  ‘Same thing,’ muttered the secretary under his breath. ‘Reprehensible and not cricket, I mean.’

  ‘I take it,’ said the chairman, whose capacity not to rise to each and every provocation made him an excellent choice for this office, ‘that after making the Jack in his own hand, West would then lead another Heart in order to repeat the finesse?’

  ‘The attempted finesse,’ insisted the secretary, whose pernickety ways made him such a good secretary.

  ‘Not exactly,’ said the director immediately, ‘although obviously when he did so North simply played another low Heart.’

  ‘Because he couldn’t do anything else,’ agreed the chairman, whom no one had ever thought to be slow on the uptake.

  ‘Exactly,’ said the director. ‘But this time – and this is the beauty of it, chairman – I guess West doesn’t have another Heart after that and so he plays the Ace from the table and … wait for it …’

  ‘I am waiting,’ said the chairman mildly. He had been working hard on establishing the principle in the club that one should only ever say one of two things to one’s partner, whatever the provocation. They were ‘Well done’ or ‘Bad luck’ but he wasn’t expecting this to be all in this case.

  ‘South’s King falls under it,’ said the director triumphantly, ‘because he hadn’t another Heart either and so he had to play his King. That makes the Queen of Hearts good, of course, and West makes his contract.’

  ‘That’s when the fun began,’ said the secretary.

  ‘Fun?’ said the chairman with the raised eyebrows. Nothing was exactly fun on the Bench, either.

  ‘North started storming at South for not putting his King on when he could and so getting their opponents down.’

  ‘And?’ said the chairman. There was always more to be said in the Magistrates’ Court, too.

  ‘And you’ll never guess what South said,’ grinned the secretary, ‘when North asked him why he hadn’t put his King on when he could have done.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said the chairman.

  ‘He looked straight at North and said, “Because I thought you’d got it”.’

  ‘Lovely,’ said chairman, rubbing his hands. ‘Now that’s what I call good endplay.’

  IN THE FAMILY WAY

  ‘I’ll tell you two here one thing for sure,’ said Martin, ‘and that is that as far as I’m concerned Aunt Maude is not going into a care home. Ever.’

  ‘It’s all very well for you to say that,’ objected his sister, Paula, ‘but who on earth is going to look after her if she goes on staying at home alone?’

  ‘Have you any idea what care homes cost?’ said Martin.

  ‘I have,’ said Gerald morosely. He was the son of Aunt Maude’s brother and thus cousin to Martin and Paula who were her sister’s children. ‘I come across it all the time at work and I know that it’s a devil of a lot. The fees can eat up a family’s capital in no time at all. And usually do.’

  The three of them were having a family conclave – convened by Martin – about what to do about their childless old aunt who, notably self-reliant and independent until now, had begun to have falls and not remember yesterday. The bad winter of 1947 in very great detail, yes – but not yesterday. They had foregathered in the Calleshire village of Cullingoak and were now sitting round a table in The White Hart Inn having a pub lunch before going up the hill to Church Hill Cottage to visit their old aunt.

  ‘Besides,’ went on Martin, ‘if she goes into a residential home she’ll have to give away all those ghastly plants of hers first …’

  ‘That wouldn’t be easy,’ shuddered Paula. ‘I can’t imagine anyone wanting them. They’re absolutely awful.’

  ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t ever do it anyway,’ said Martin. ‘She’s much too fond of them for that. Anyone want my onions? I think they spoil a Ploughman’s Lunch and anyway I can’t stand them.’

  ‘Better than having a cat to leave behind, though,’ said Gerald, withdrawing his own platter of bread and cheese a little: he didn’t like pickled onions either. ‘In my experience that can get really difficult. Or, come to that, a dog.’

  ‘Plants must be easier to leave than either a cat or dog,’ said Paula. ‘No more onion fo
r me, thanks, Martin. I’ve got plenty on my plate already.’ She looked up and said seriously, ‘Actually, I think we’ve all got quite enough on our plate, too, as far as Aunt Maude is concerned.’

  Martin said, ‘She’s extremely attached to that wretched collection of hers although don’t ask me why. And they’d never let her take them with her into a home. Nobody in their right mind would.’

  Paula nodded. ‘I agree they’re enough to give anyone the heeby-jeebies, but she dotes on them.’

  ‘If she was seventy years younger,’ avowed Martin, ‘I’d say she was an anorak about them.’

  ‘I’d forgotten about all those funny things she grows,’ admitted Gerald. ‘Flycatchers or something, aren’t they?’

  ‘Flowers of Evil,’ supplied Paula, ‘that’s what they’re called. I don’t like them.’

  ‘You haven’t visited her for a while, have you, Gerald?’ said Martin rather pointedly. ‘Well, I can tell you that there are more of them than ever in that precious garden room of hers. A specialised collection of the most revolting-looking plants you’ve ever seen but at least she can still get to them with her Zimmer frame. She doesn’t go out in the garden alone any more, thank goodness. We don’t want her to fall down and break her hip out there.’

  ‘I think they’re what are known as the insectivorous plants,’ supplied Paula.

  ‘Carnivorous, more like,’ said Martin. ‘Gardening can bring out the worst in some people. I shall never forget being with her once when I was little. We were in her greenhouse and she stood there in her brown Oxford shoes, pointed to the cucumbers with her umbrella, and said, “They’re all right provided you nip out the male flowers”. I was quite nervous at the time, I can tell you. I wanted to run away.’

  His sister smiled and as was her wont, stuck to the subject. ‘The hooded ones usually grow in poor soil and that’s why they need the insects for nourishment.’ Actually Paula had looked them up in a gardening book before she came but did not say so.

  ‘I don’t care what they’re called or what their nasty little habits are,’ said Martin strenuously, ‘but I do know that they wouldn’t want those in any care home that I’ve ever heard of and I must say I wouldn’t want them in mine.’