The Case of the Four Friends

By J.C. Masterman

Late at night in the Senior Common Room of St Thomas's College, Ernst Brendel is persuaded by his companions to relate a tale of murder, blackmail, and corruption. A wager is made, half a crown to the first person to guess the murderer correctly. But the game is not so simple. The crime involves four friends, each with the potential to be the murderer – or the victim.

Brendel employs the art of 'pre-detection', uncovering motive and cause before the crime has even been committed. But does he have enough foresight to prevent the dastardly deed from taking place?

First published in 1953, The Case of Four Friends explores a world of calculation, wit, and marvellous deduction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jun 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781448214266

J.C. Masterman

Sir John Cecil Masterman, (1891–1977), was a son of Captain John Masterman and he was originally destined to follow his father's footsteps. Masterman spent five years as a naval cadet but dropped out as he felt unsuited for a military career. Instead he pursued academic interests and in 1909 was elected for a scholarship in modern history at Worcester College, Oxford; academic life became his lifelong devotion. Masterman was a dedicated sportsman and played cricket, lawn tennis and hockey for England in international matches. His literary works were often inspired by his Oxford life and historical pursuits.

Book preview

Introduction

Is it true that an Introduction is usually the last part of a book to be written? I do not know, but certainly in the case of this book the Introduction was not begun until the story had been completed. And very quickly, in the writing, it changed its nature and wrote itself rather as a Postscript than as a Foreword – what should have been a diagnosis became a post-mortem. For that reason the so-called ‘Introduction’ is banished to its proper place at the end of the book, where it may be read or neglected as suits the reader’s fancy.

Chapter One

In the Senior Common Room at St Thomas’s College, Oxford, Ernst Brendel, though we saw him seldom, was always a welcome visitor. Twenty years before, when first he came to the College as a guest, he had helped us to solve the mystery of a murder which had taken place on the very night of his arrival. What a phrase! Surely murders don’t ‘take place’; they are perpetrated, they are committed, and they are described to the accompaniment of every kind of horrific epithet – dastardly and sacrilegious, foul and most unnatural. But yet at St Thomas’s it wasn’t so; in the strictest sense of the words, the murder took place, and it was Brendel’s task to piece the evidence, such as it was, together and to elucidate the mystery. That he did so, and yet continued to make friends with all our small society, showed at once his skill and his tact. He was an international lawyer of repute; he was also a criminologist, and the curious phrase, so often misused, was yet applicable to him, for he had in the truest sense of the term a ‘European reputation’. Not that those who spoke of him could define very accurately what his work was or what his achievements had been. ‘Brendel,’ they would say, ‘oh yes, I’ve met him – the lawyer chap who knows all about crime; damned able man, got a European reputation, so they tell me.’ If questioned, Brendel was accustomed to give somewhat evasive answers about himself, if he did not avoid the question altogether. He was a talkative and companionable man, but he knew the value of silence, particularly when his own career was the subject of conversation.

A hard-fought rubber had just finished and Brendel was idly shuffling the cards.

‘Always’, he said with a smile, ‘there are surprises for me in Oxford. I come back and think that we shall talk through the night as we always have done about the latest books and the newest scientific discoveries and even the latest College scandals. Perhaps, I sigh to myself, my good friends will all be at daggers drawn trying to decide who is to be the next President.’

‘You’ve been reading The Masters,’ said Prendergast, the Law Tutor, in a tone of reproval.

‘I have, and some day I will tell you why I rate that book so highly as a work of art; but I was not thinking of it just now. I was only expressing surprise that instead of the discussions which I had expected and instead of the College or University politics which I thought you would have indulged in, we have had a very agreeable rubber of bridge and no conversation at all.’

Another member of the four smiled and intervened with his accustomed courtesy. He was a retired Lieutenant-General who at the end of a career of distinguished service had come to live in North Oxford, and who, after election to the Senior Common Room, had become a much-appreciated member of that usually, somewhat self-sufficient and exclusive body.

‘With the very greatest respect, Dr Brendel,’ he said, ‘you are something of a surprise yourself. I heard that you would be here tonight – that’s why I put my name down to dine, and I was told that I should meet and listen to a most eminent international lawyer and a famous criminologist. Instead I meet an alarmingly skilful bridge player; I cut against him in every rubber, and I return to my home a poorer and a wiser man. To save my self-respect, I am forced to the conclusion that you are, in addition to your other titles to eminence, a very fine player. What, pray, is your secret? Is it card sense, or just fortune, or great experience, or deep calculation, or psychological knowledge, or second sight, or what?’

‘It is not second sight,’ Brendel replied, ‘though I have seen that gift, in one sense at any rate, turned to good use. When I was a young man I remember watching a rubber – let me say somewhere in Europe to avoid giving offence – in which a royal personage was taking part. He had the reputation of glancing rather too frequently at his opponents’ cards if they held them carelessly; indeed, his entourage used to speak, a little bitterly, of what they called the royal peep. A moment arrived when the royal personage required to make his contract of four spades for game and rubber and when success depended on a finesse in hearts. On his right was sitting his youthful and not very discreet A.D.C. and it seemed to him that the royal neck extended itself unnaturally two or three times and at a curious angle towards the right. I was in fact watching the royal peep in operation. Finally he led a small heart from his own hand up to the ace queen, and firmly put on the queen, only to see it covered by the king. Oh, cried the royal personage, but I made quite sure that you had not got the king of hearts. I always had it, Sir, replied the A.D.C. with a sweet smile, but I had ventured to conceal it among my diamonds. I don’t think that young man held his job very much longer.’

The General chuckled with delight. ‘That brings to my mind an episode in my own career,’ he said, ‘which took place not in Europe but let me say somewhere in Asia. I was a young officer and it fell to my lot to play poker, which I could ill afford, with a party that included royalty. Late in the evening I had a high hand – to be precise, four knaves – and I found myself betting pretty heavily against the king (for such he was), who also clearly held a high hand. Finally I paid to see him, but he only said Four kings, and did not put his cards on the table. I coughed and hesitated, and finally asked as politely as I could that I might have a look at them. He laid down three kings, and patted his chest. Four kings, he repeated, "there are three of them – et moi, je suis le quatrième."

‘That was a little embarrassing, but mercifully I thought of the right answer, "Pas assez bon, Majesté," I said in my pidgin French, "I have cinq valets – four on the table, and me, I am the fifth." ’

‘Grossartig!’ Brendel exclaimed. ‘You are the true courtier. That I think you would describe as getting away with it. Do you notice, by the way, how much better my English is than when I first came to St Thomas’s? ’

Gresham, the classical tutor, had been the fourth player, and it was he who answered Brendel’s question.

‘Indeed we do,’ he said, ‘but I fancy you are getting away with it yourself. The General asked you to tell us the secret of your success at bridge, and you have skilfully evaded the question. My own private opinion is that there is a close connexion between bridge and crime, and that you bring to the game just those methods which you use when you are investigating a crime or helping to solve some mysterious happening. I suspect, though I don’t know, that you have summed all three of us up in the course of the evening, and that you would win steadily and deservedly if we played here for half a dozen nights. Am I right?’

Brendel made one of those motions with his hands which said as much as half a dozen sentences.

‘But I have had wonderfully good cards tonight,’ he said modestly, ‘and with good cards much can be done. Shall we not, perhaps, play another rubber?’

‘No, sir,’ said the General. ‘I have been the chief loser, and I renounce with all due formality my claim to have my revenge; instead, I ask you to tell each of us what our bridge failings are and how we can correct them, and then, yes, of course, then you must tell us if Gresham is right in thinking that there is a connexion between your own skill at cards and your skill in the ferreting out of crime and criminals. Come, there is no escape, you cannot refuse this modest request.’

‘But it would offend against all the canons of good taste if I ventured to criticize the play of my good friends,’ Brendel objected. ‘Really, you must not ask me to do that. How can I either accede to your request or refuse it without discourtesy? You have me in what you call – let me see’ (he searched for the words), ‘yes, you have me in your cleft stick.’

Everyone laughed. ‘Oh, come,’ said Prendergast, the Law Tutor, ‘we are not so sensitive as all that, besides, if I squirm a little when you diagnose my faults, I shall have the consolation of hearing the much grosser errors of Gresham and the General exposed. I’ll volunteer to be the first victim.’

Brendel shrugged his shoulders. ‘If you insist, gentlemen, then I must give way. I admit that I have made my observations during the course of the rubbers which we have played, and I’ve done so because that sort of observation is second nature with me, as I believe it must be to all who play cards much. Very well, then, I start, my dear Prendergast, with you.’

He paused and collected his thoughts.

‘You are a good player, and could, I think, be a very good one, but – well, how shall I put it? – you have certain faults.’ Prendergast, who fancied his bridge a good deal and who had looked pleased at the beginning, lost his look of self-satisfaction as Brendel proceeded.

‘In the first place you are, like myself, a lawyer and, agreeable to the practice of the law, you are averse from coming to a decision. You always like to collect a little more evidence if you can before you make up your mind, and so you involve yourself in a maze of cue bids and such like, and arrive at your final contract only after a rather elaborate campaign of bidding. Sometimes, you know, the information which you give and receive, is more useful to your opponents than to you and your partner. I think that you would be more at home playing in America than in this country. That’s a minor fault, but there’s more to come.’ Prendergast began to look uncomfortable.

‘My guess is’, Brendel went on, ‘that you are accustomed to play with friends whom you think, and who no doubt are, less skilful than yourself. Consequently you don’t really trust your partners, and you’re inclined to insist on playing the hand yourself, without heeding your partner’s warnings. There are many occasions in the bidding of hands when the original opener must content himself with resigning the direction to his partner – when the senior, so to speak, becomes the junior. Am I right or am I being unfair?’

The General chuckled. In the last rubber played Prendergast had ignored two of his sign-off bids, and the resulting loss had been considerable.

‘You are quite right,’ he said, ‘so right that I’m nervous about myself, but I think I’m the next victim. I’ll put on my poker face and take what’s coming to me.’

Brendel made a little bow. ‘I said that Prendergast was a good player,’ he began, ‘and I make the same compliment to you, for you are a naturally good player. And you have another virtue, my dear sir, and it’s this. I think you enjoy your game as much as anyone I have ever met. Even when an occasional set-back comes you are still enjoying yourself, even though you do tend to oscillate between an exaggerated optimism and an unworthy pessimism. You guess the criticism which I am suggesting. You don’t quite bid your hands according to their value, but rather according to your own psychological state of mind. You were underbidding, you know, in that last rubber because you had lost the two before – but I fancy that, had you won them, you might have erred very much more in the other direction. Should I be quite wrong if I guessed that you were, at least partly, an Irishman?’

‘Touché,’ laughed the General. ‘I accept the verdict and beg you now to explore all Gresham’s secrets. It’s his turn now.’

‘But I’ve never pretended to be a good player,’ said Gresham. ‘You mustn’t class me with the others, you see – ’

‘No, no,’ the General protested. ‘Don’t give him the answer before he’s tried to find it for himself. We want to know what Brendel can deduce from these three rubbers, and I’m bound to say that he’s seen through Prendergast and myself. Let the dog see the rabbit, Gresham, and give him a fair run, but don’t kill the animal before he’s chased it. Not that I mean for a moment that you are a rabbit in the bridge sense,’ he added hastily.

Gresham made a gesture of acquiescence. ‘Very well then,’ he said. ‘I offer myself, too, for public examination, but I really wish that I’d not started this conversation. Carry on, Brendel, and do your worst. What are the real reasons why I consistently lose?’

‘Perhaps you are a little too diffident,’ Brendel replied. ‘You ought not to lose consistently, and I wonder that you do. For in many ways you would be chosen as a partner by a great many people. Now, let me see, what have I noticed about your play? I think I should be correct if I said that you have played the game for a much shorter time than Prendergast or the General.’

‘That is true, but how do you know it?’

‘Well, there are a good many indications. I cannot help observing that you always carefully arrange your cards in exactly the same way, and with great care – I notice because I cannot help noticing when I am playing bridge. Indeed, I must confess that I have purposely to look the other way when you make an original lead at the beginning of a hand because I know that if the fourth card from the left of your hand is led, you hold three higher spades. It’s clean contrary to the spirit of the game that I should gain that knowledge in that way, but you do make it difficult for me not to – what do you say? – sail too near to the wind, or is it get too near to the knuckle?’

Gresham laughed. ‘Good gracious, it’s never occurred to me to arrange my hand in any other way, but surely that little fact is not going to tell you that I’ve played for long. I should do that if I’d played all my life.’

‘Quite true, but there’s plenty of supporting evidence. I am almost sure that you make a point count of every hand you hold, and I’m quite sure that your bidding is governed by pretty rigid conventions. You call an original no-trump if you have a count of fourteen to sixteen, and in no other circumstances; you raise your partner or give him a double rise or a jump according to your count. And what does that mean? It means that you can always defend yourself at the post-mortem, I had to make that last bid, partner, I had a count of twelve. Or again: I had to return a low card when I led back to my partner’s original suit because I held more cards in it than he could, and I was afraid of blocking the suit. And yet you have not realized that to break the contract you only have to make two tricks in that suit and that you’ll never have the opportunity of breaking it if you don’t take it then, because the previous bidding and the cards in dummy indicate quite clearly that the best lead ideally from the cards you hold is not the best lead for that particular hand. You petered once, Gresham, because you had a doubleton and trumped in the next round, but that was fatal because you did not want to weaken your trump holding. Ergo, you should have discouraged the second lead of the suit. Unluckily you play high-low almost automatically when you hold a doubleton in your partner’s suit. It all suggests the man who has learned rather late, and is trying to protect himself by playing the game according to rule. That’s why I said that many would choose you as a partner rather than many more expert players. Your partner, within limits, can know pretty accurately what you hold. Unfortunately your opponents can learn a good deal, too. Yes, I’m afraid you’re too much bound by rule and convention. Do you remember holding this hand in the second rubber?’

Very quickly Brendel sorted out thirteen cards from one of the packs lying on the table. In some curious way the cards seemed to obey him, and he could put his fingers on the one he wanted when other men would have searched laboriously through the pack. ‘Yes, that, I think, was the hand you held, wasn’t it?’

‘I’m afraid I’ve quite forgotten,’ Gresham confessed. ‘Do you remember all the hands that are played?’

‘No, not quite all, but those of interest photographed themselves on my mind, and this particular hand taught me something about your bridge. I wonder if you can see why – and if you remember it now.’

‘Yes, I do remember holding a hand like that,’ said Gresham, ‘but I couldn’t be sure about many of the cards. I just remember the general set-up.’

‘Well, you must admit, for the sake of argument, that I have put down the hand accurately, and you’ll notice that you had a void in diamonds. Now we were all playing the Blackwood four-five no trump, and you were involved in Blackwood bidding on that hand. Too late you discovered that your responses could not indicate the strength which the void gave you, and because your rules and conventions tied you down you weren’t able to adapt yourself and so you missed your slam. So my deduction, once again, was that you had not played the game very long, and that you were, in consequence, too much the slave of the rules and regulations, which were designed to keep you out of mischief. Bridge, you know, is so much more than a mere matter of calculation and the application of rules. But now you shall tell me that I am entirely wrong; that Gresham is the player with the longest experience of you all, and that he never condescends to use a point count at all.’ Brendel’s eyes beamed at the company through his glasses, as his fingers played with the cards on the table.

‘On the contrary,’ said Gresham, ‘you are entirely right. I only started the game a couple of years ago, because Common Room was short of players, and I remember being rash enough to say then that I thought that bridge could be learned entirely from books and that no one could fail to be successful who followed some scientific and accurate system in his play. Now I begin to think, and especially after talking to you tonight, that it’s an art rather than a science.’

‘I’m not sure of that,’ said Brendel, ‘but no matter. I’m glad at least that my diagnosis was not wholly false, and I hope that I’ve not made three friends into enemies by it. You did almost force me to criticize, didn’t you? So you must forgive me for what I’ve said and forget about it. Come, let us play another rubber, and