Agatha Christie and Playing Cards revisited

Alongside my interest in the history of playing cards, I am an enthusiastic reader of crime novels, particularly from the period known as the “Golden Age of detective fiction” between the two world wars. This got me thinking. How might I link the two? Possibly the best-known author of this period was Agatha Christie whose crime writing spanned the period from the first world war into the 1970s. Is it possible to explore the role played by cards in this extensive output?

I first published this article on card games in Agatha Christie’s crime writings in 2024. Since then I have found far more references to cards than I had previously discovered or are mentioned elsewhere in the extensive literature about Christie and her crime writing. To date I have discovered references to cards and card play in nine of her novels, 13 of her short stories and one play¹. All of these (with one exception) were written or first published between 1920 and 1942². This was not only the so-called Golden Era of crime novels but also the 20th century heyday of card games, particularly bridge, as the major medium of social entertainment.

In some of her writings, card play was a major plot line, providing the primary focus of the story. In others, card games were used to provide an alibi for a murderer – usually unsuccessfully - or to develop a character as being corrupt or short of money. And elsewhere references simply reflect the role that card games in general, and bridge in particular, were a routine source of social entertainment in the 1920s, thirties and forties when everyone who mixed in these social circles was expected to know how to play bridge in order to make up a four in any social gathering. As yet I have been unable to find any card playing references in her huge repertoire after 1942.

As far as possible I have arranged the examples in the order in which they were written or published, whichever was the earlier³.

“The Mysterious Affair at Styles” was Christie’s first attempt at a crime novel and featured her famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. It was written during the first world war⁴ but failed to find a publisher for several years. It only appeared in print in 1920 in the USA and in 1921 in the UK. It was the classic country house drama so surely someone somewhere would be playing whist or an early form of bridge? But no. There was too much angst following a murder for such an activity. However, by Chapter 11, towards the denouement of the story, Hercule Poirot was so stressed that “he went across to the desk and took out a small pack of patience cards ...then…began solemnly to build card houses. He said at once ‘Non, mon ami. I am not in my second childhood. I steady my nerves, that is all. This employment requires precision of the fingers. With precision of the fingers goes precision of the brain, and never have I needed that more than now.” Indeed, it is while Poirot is building his second seven-storey house of cards that Captain Hastings makes a related comment which gives Poirot the final clue which solves the mystery and unveils the murderer. Cards, albeit in house-building form, arguably assist in solving the murder in Agatha Christie’s first crime novel!

Playing with patience cards was an extremely popular pastime in Britain from the middle of the 19th Century. The first book on patience in the English language was published in 1859.⁵ Christie writes about Poirot using a small pack of patience cards knowing that this would be very familiar to readers of her novel.

The first significant appearance of card games I have discovered in Christie’s work is in “The King of Clubs”, a short Poirot story first published in the UK in The Sketch in March 1923, and later in The Blue Book Magazine in the US in November of that year. It was republished in the States in a collection of Christie short stories called “The Underdog and Other Stories” in 1951. But it was not reprinted in the UK until a collection called “Poirot’s Early Cases” appeared in 1974.

The story revolves around a family who claimed to have been playing bridge in the drawing room of their house in Streatham on the previous night when the French windows burst open and a woman staggered in, blood on her dress. She managed to say, "Murder!" and then fell to the floor. Poirot is called in to investigate.

“The room had evidently not been touched since the night before. The ashes were still in the grate and the bridge table was still in the centre of the room with the dummy hand exposed and the hands thrown down…’We were playing bridge after supper when er…’ ‘Excuse me. How long had you been playing?’ ‘Well’, Miss Oglander considered. ‘I really can’t say. I suppose it must have been about ten o’clock. We’d had several rubbers, I know…. I was playing with my mother and had gone one no trump. Suddenly, without warning, the window burst open and Miss Sinclair staggered into the room.’

Later on, Poirot scrutinised the cards open on the table. “Poirot idly gathered up the cards, shuffling them with his tiny, fastidiously groomed hands. ‘Do you know what I think, my friend?’ ‘No?’ I said eagerly. ‘I think Miss Oglander made a mistake in going one no trump. She should have gone three spades!’… Suddenly he stiffened. ‘Hastings. See! The King of Clubs is missing from the pack. He stacked the cards and put them away in their cases. His face very grave’.”

Poirot had discovered that the King of Clubs was still in the box. It is clear that no game had been taking place as no four people would have managed even a single deal of the cards without noticing that one of the cards was missing. The card game was clearly a set up and, as a result, Poirot stays on to investigate further and to discover why the family had attempted this subterfuge.

When this story was written, in 1923, the game of bridge had evolved from whist, via bridge-whist to auction bridge but was still several years away from contract, the version and scoring system we know today. But whether the participants in this fictitious game were playing auction bridge or an earlier variant, the King of Clubs was still a vital component! Interesting to note in passing that Poirot “stacked the cards and put them away in their cases” (plural). It was clearly normal practice at this time to play bridge with two packs, one being dealt, the second being shuffled and set aside for the next game.

In 1924 Christie published an adventure novel called “The Man in the Brown Suit” in which the heroine travels from London to South Africa in search of the title character thought to have been involved in a murder. On board ship she encounters Sir Eustace Pedler MP who, writing in his diary, comments on his fellow travellers. “On the whole the people on board are a mangy lot. Only two decent bridge players, and one decent looking woman.”

“The House of Dreams” is a short story published in “While the Light Lasts and other stories”, 1997, but it first appeared in the Sovereign Magazine in1926. In it, a father reflects on his daughter’s prospective boyfriend.

“He didn’t know what on earth to say to young Seagrave. Maisy was too bad with her friends. It wasn’t as though the fellow was good looking, really good looking, and certainly he wasn’t amusing…The young idiot didn’t even play bridge!”

Interesting to note that the ability to play bridge was seen in 1926 as an indicator of class and “good breeding”.

In 1929, Christie published an adventure story, “The Seven Dials Mystery”. It starts in the country House, Chimneys, which had featured in an earlier novel. Sir Oswald and Lady Coote have rented the house for the season and are entertaining a number of guests. As the story builds up, life continues as “normal”, and, as if routine, bridge is played in the evening.

“Dinner was over. Lady Coote had once more been detained for duty. Sir Oswald had unexpectedly come to the rescue by suggesting bridge. Not that suggesting is the right word. Sir Oswald, as became one of our captains of industry, merely expressed a preference and those around him hastened to accommodate themselves to the great man’s wishes. Rupert Bateman and Sir Oswald were partners against Lady Coote and Gerald Wade which was a very happy arrangement. Sir Oswald played bridge like he did everything else, extremely well and liked a partner to correspond. Bateman was as efficient a partner as he was a secretary. Both of them confined themselves strictly to the matter in hand, merely uttering in short, curt barks ‘two no trumps’, ‘double’, ‘three spades’. Lady Coote and Gerald Wade were amiable and discursive, and the young man never failed to say at the conclusion of each hand ‘I say, partner, you played that simply splendidly’, in terms of simple admiration which Lady Coote found both novel and extremely soothing. They also held good cards.”

There is a brief return to the developing plot, during which Bateman “taking advantage of being dummy…returned to his room for a handkerchief”. Clearly the notion of the dummy player leaving the table and wandering around rather than watching his/her partner playing the cards is not just a modern phenomenon. It usually occurs when you have saddled your partner with an impossible contract!

“Bridge was still proceeding, but with a slight difference. Sir Oswald was now playing with his wife and was conscientiously pointing out to her the mistakes she had made during the play of each hand. Lady Coote accepted reproof good humouredly and with a complete lack of any real interest. She reiterated not once but many times ‘I see, dear. It’s so kind of you to tell me’ and continued to make exactly the same errors.

“‘My dear Maria’, rose the voice of Sir Oswald in mild irritation. ‘I have told you over and over again not to hesitate when you are wondering whether to finesse or not. You give the whole table information.’ Lady Coote had a very good answer to this. Namely, that as Sir Oswald was dummy, he had no right to comment on the play of the hand, but she did not make it. Instead, she smiled kindly, leaned her ample chest well forward over the table, and gazed firmly into Gerald Wade’s hand where he sat on her right. Her anxieties lulled to rest by perceiving the Queen, played the knave, took the trick and proceeded to lay down her cards. ‘Four tricks and rubber’ she announced. ‘I think I was very lucky to get four tricks there.’ ‘Lucky!’, murmured Gerald Wade as he pushed back his chair and came over to the fireplace to join the others. ‘Lucky, she called it! That woman wants watching.’

“Lady Coote was gathering up notes and silver. ‘I know I’m not a good player’, she announced in a mournful tone, which nevertheless held an undercurrent of pleasure in it, ‘but I’m really very lucky at the game.’ ‘You’ll never be a bridge player Maria’, said Sir Oswald. ‘No dear’, said Lady Coote. ‘I know I shan’t. You’re always telling me so, and I try so hard.’

‘She does’, said Gerald Wade soto voce. ‘There’s no subterfuge about it! She’d put her head right down on to your shoulder if she couldn’t see into your hand any other way.’ ‘I know you try’, said Sir Oswald. ‘It’s just that you haven’t any card sense.’ ‘I know dear. That’s what you’re always telling me. And you owe me another ten shillings. Yes. Seventeen hundred; eight pounds ten shillings, and you’ve only given me eight pounds’.”

I have quoted these paragraphs from The Seven Dials Mystery at length because, apart from being amusing, they are rich with information about bridge in 1929.

It is evident that in this type of company it was assumed that most people would be sufficiently familiar and proficient with bridge to sustain an evening of play. Interestingly, no clue is given about whether the four were playing auction or contract bridge. Contract had been introduced only two years earlier and many players were yet to adjust from auction. It is quite possible that players in this time of rapid change would be familiar with both types and be prepared to play under either sets of rules so long as this was established in advance. This would have been particularly important if money was involved.

Bridge, although a widely familiar pastime, would encompass a wide range of skills amongst players, from the dedicated and focussed (Sir Oswald and partner) to the light-hearted and relatively unskilled (Lady Coote and Gerald Wade).

Bridge could be played not just for fun but with significant stakes. Lady Coote, by fair means and foul, ended up the evening £8 10s better off which, accounting for inflation over the past 95 years, amounted to the equivalent of more than £650. No wonder Gerald Wade was a little put out by the evident cheating, although clearly social etiquette of the time prevented any kind of challenge.⁶

Finally, the passage illustrates the fact that during a social evening of bridge, partnerships would be expected to change, usually at the end of a rubber, to add variety and to even out the luck of the cards. (From experience, this rarely works!)

I suspect that Agatha Christie, if not a keen bridge player herself, was well aware of the social significance of the game and had more than once experienced the interplay between partners, not least between husband-and-wife partnerships, of the kind illustrated by Lord and Lady Coote. I know I have!

Nineteen twenty-nine also saw publication of Partners in Crime, a series of short stories. This collection features the married couple Tommy and Tuppence when they were in their early 30s. Unlike Poirot, Tommy and Tuppence are gradually aged when Christie writes about their later adventures.

“Partners in Crime” is sprinkled with passing references to cards and card games. In Chapter 3, “The Affair of the Pink Pearl”, Colonel Kingston Bruce explains “Last night, we were playing bridge at the time, the clasp of a pendant Mrs Hamilton Betts was wearing, broke” dislodging a valuable pearl. In discussion with the unlikely sleuths, he attributes the theft of the pearl to one of his guests. “What could have been easier for him than to have quietly wrenched off the pearl at the moment when we were all fully absorbed in our game. There were several absorbing moments. A redoubled no trump hand, I remember, and also a painful argument when my wife had the misfortune to revoke.” Needless to say, perhaps, that this was another of Christie’s red herrings.

In Chapter 4, “The Affair of the Sinister Stranger” Tommy finds himself “securely bound” by the bad guys as his premises are searched for a missing letter. When his bonds are removed, he remarks “If we’d had a pack of cards here, we might have had a game of piquet to pass the time”.

Chapter 5 is titled “Finessing the King”, which is promising in the present context, but it turns out that the language of whist or bridge has nothing to do with either game. Tommy and Tuppence are in conversation.

“ ‘I’m intrigued by this advertisement.’ She picked up The Daily Leader again and read it out. ‘I should go three hearts, twelve tricks, Ace of Spades, necessary to finesse the King.’ ‘Rather an expensive way of learning bridge’ was Tommy’s comment. ‘Don’t be an ass. It’s got nothing to do with bridge. You see, I was lunching with a girl yesterday at the Ace of Spades. It’s a queer little underground den in Chelsea. And she told me that it’s quite the fashion in these big shows to trundle around there in the course of the evening for bacon and eggs and Welsh rarebit. Bohemian sort of stuff.’ ….. ‘And your idea is?’ ‘Three Hearts stands for the Heart’s Ball tomorrow night. Twelve tricks is twelve o’clock and the Ace of Spades is the Ace of Spades.’ ‘And what about it being necessary to finesse the king?’ ‘Well. That’s what I thought we’d find out.’ “

Subsequently, a girl dressed as the Queen of Hearts is stabbed and Tommy and Tuppence work to solve the murder by the “Gentleman dressed in Newspaper”. (Chapter 6). The phrase “Finessing the King” is later understood to refer to an assignation between two people attending the event. The phrases used have nothing to do with cards but illustrate that Christie was not only aware of the language of cards herself but assumed the same level of knowledge amongst her readers.

In 1930, Christie published her collection of 12 short stories involving “The Mysterious Mr. Quin”. In “The Sign in the Sky”, Mr. Quin has just helped Mr Satterthwaite to work out who committed the murder. “’He put the (the clocks) back 10 minutes’, said Mr Satterthwaite almost in a whisper, so awed was he by the discoveries he was making. ‘Then he went out to bridge!’..He left his bridge party at 6.30, found Martin’s gun by the side door, and went in and shot her from behind.’”

In an early Miss Marple short story, “A Christmas Tragedy”, ⁵ 1932, there is an early reference to bridge. Here, Miss Marple was convinced that a husband planned to kill his wife. During one afternoon, she asked one of the company where she was and was told that “she’d gone out with some friends, the Mortimers, to play bridge”. For the time being, Miss Marple knew that she was safe, although (spoiler) that didn’t last!

Parker Pyne was another of Christie’s characters contained in a collection of short stories, “Parker Pyne Investigates”, 1934. In “Death on the Nile” (unrelated to her novel of the same name), “After dinner he played bridge with Sir George, Pamela and Basil. Everyone seemed a little distray and the bridge game broke up early.”

A collection of 12 mystical short stories under the title “Hound of Death and other stories” was published in 1933. In “Wireless”, a nephew, Charles, is attempting to frighten his aunt to death using the “newfangled” device of a radio about which the aunt was extremely sceptical.. He used the excuse of bridge evenings to provide his alibi.

“It was about three months after the wireless had been installed when the first eerie happening occurred. Charles was absent at a bridge party.”

And later in the story as the denouement approached “After a minute or two she said, ‘What are you doing on Friday evening, Charles?’ Charles looked a trifle surprised. ‘As a matter of fact, erm, the Ewings asked me to go in and play bridge. But if you would rather that I stayed at home….’

After the aunt had been frightened to death, the doctor “was called at once, and Charles Ridgeway was hastily recalled from his bridge party. But nothing could be done.” Need I add (spoiler), Charles didn’t get away with it!

The Poirot short story, “Problem at Sea” was first published in the UK in the Strand Magazine in February 1936. Poirot was not enjoying himself on a Mediterranean cruise because he was not a good sailor. At a point in the narrative “there was a suggestion of bridge” and several passengers “sat down to it”. “What about your husband?” asked one of the players. “John won’t play”, said Mrs Clapperton and “the four bridge players began shuffling the cards”. Poirot questions why Mrs Clapperton used the phrase “won’t play” instead of “can’t play” and wondered whether this was significant. Indeed it was, as later Colonel Clapperton was discovered demonstrating card tricks to two younger fellow travellers when he was encouraged to explain why he would not play bridge. “I have my reasons for not playing bridge…look, I’ll show you.” He proceeds to deal four hands which cause astonishment to the assembled company by each hand containing all of the cards of a single suit, concluding with all the Spades in his own hand! “You see”, he said, “a man who can deal his partner and his adversaries any hand he pleases better stand aloof from a friendly game. If the game goes his way, ill-natured things might be said”. This event creates one of the red herrings in Christie’s story, temporarily disguising which branch of entertainment the colonel had been involved in before the war.

So far, card play has been incidental to the main story. However, in 1936 Agatha published “Cards on the Table” in which card play was a major feature. Four characters play bridge while their host for the evening sits out by the fire. Part way through the game the host is discovered to have been stabbed through the heart with a stiletto dagger. The novel is entirely concerned with which of the four players in that game was the murderer. Poirot and three other characters were also playing bridge but in an adjacent room. Importantly they were not playing duplicate or there would have been more interaction between the two rooms as packs of cards were exchanged, and the number of potential murderers would have increased accordingly.

Throughout the novel, Poirot interviews each of the card players in turn to discuss their bidding and play before the murder was discovered. In writing these encounters Christie exhibits more than a passing knowledge of the intricacies of bridge bidding and play.

Having interviewed all of the players individually, Poirot eventually solves the crime by inspecting the scoring pads. There was, says Poirot, “one tangible clue; the bridge scores. I noticed at once, in the third rubber, the figure of 1500 above the line. That figure could only represent one thing, a call of grand slam. Now, if a person were to make up their minds to commit a crime under these unusual circumstances, that is during a rubber game of bridge, that person was clearly running two serious risks. The first one that the victim might cry out. The second was that even if the victim did not cry out, some one of the other three might chance to look up at the psychological moment and actually witness the deed.” The first issue, he argues, is a gamble but … “something could be done about the second. It stands to reason that during an interesting or exciting hand the attention of the three players would be wholly on the game, whereas during a dull hand they were more likely to be looking about them. Now, a bid of Grand Slam is always exciting. It is very often, as in this case it was, doubled. Every one of the three players is paying close attention. The declarer, to get his contract; the adversaries to discard correctly and get him down. It was then a distinct possibility that the murder was committed during this particular hand, and I was determined to find out, if I could, exactly how the bidding had gone. I soon discovered that dummy during this particular hand had been Dr. Roberts …The grand slam was bid by Dr. Roberts, and quite unjustifiably, and he bid it in her (his partner’s) suit, not his own, so that she necessarily played the hand.”

This is interesting for a number of reasons. Christie is writing a novel in 1936 about contract bridge which had only developed out of auction bridge right at the end of the 1920s. It reinforces the view that this form of the game progressed rapidly after its introduction, and she was right to assume a substantial knowledge of rubber contract bridge amongst her potential readers. As a result “Cards on the Table” became an instant and unexpected best seller. Interesting too that it was also a big hit in the USA where it was serialised in the Saturday Evening Post for which the publishers had paid a fee of $14,000 ⁷ before the novel was published there.

In researching for this article, I consulted the on-line Agatha Christie Community Forum Archive to seek reactions to this particular book. Comment after comment complained that they had not understood the book because they knew nothing of the rules of bridge or its scoring arrangements. A sign of the times, I guess, when the number of bridge players has fallen dramatically in recent years in favour of other forms of entertainment. This was evidently not a problem when the book was originally published on both sides of the Atlantic. Its clever and nuanced focus on a popular card game was the very reason why the book was such a success.

“Cards on the Table” was published in the UK in November 1936. Eleven months earlier. in January, Christie published “The ABC Murders”. Early in this splendid story of multiple murders, Poirot is in conversation with Hastings speculating about ideal crimes to solve. Hastings offers his usually elaborate scenarios which caused Poirot to regard him sadly. “ ‘You have made there a very pretty résumé of nearly all the detective stories that have ever been written.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘what would you order?’ Poirot closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. … ‘A very simple crime. A crime with no complications. A crime of quiet domestic life’… ‘Supposing,’ murmured Poirot, ‘that four people sit down to play bridge and one, the odd man out, sits in a chair by the fire. At the end of the evening the man by the fire is found dead. One of the four, while he is dummy, has gone over and killed him, and intent on the play of the hand, the other three have not noticed. Ah, there would be a crime for you! Which of the four was it?’ “

I find this quite extraordinary! Less than a year before “Cards on the Table” is published, Agatha Christie includes in an earlier book not only the set up for the later novel, but by referring to the murder being committed by one of the players when dummy, pretty much gave away the solution to the mystery as well! Christie clearly thought up this plot when writing the ABC Murders but, presumably, later in the year decided that this idea was too good not to use and hence the full story in Cards on the Table.⁸

In 1937 Christie published “Murder in the Mews and other stories”, two of which make reference to cards. One of the stories was “The Incredible Theft” which was also serialised in the Daily Express in the same year. This story was a thinly disguised development of an earlier short story, “The Submarine Plans”, published in 1923. The later work substituted plans for a new bomber for the earlier submarine but essentially the two stories are the same. The expansion of the narrative involved mainly developing the characters in this particular country house to increase the number of people who had a motive for stealing the plans. One such member, Lady Julia – wife of Sir George – had clearly a strong motive, namely that she was short of money because of gambling debts incurred through her compulsive playing of bridge for high stakes.

“ ‘Shall we join the ladies in the drawing room? We mustn’t deprive your wife of her bridge.’ Sir George grunted, ‘Julia’s a damn sight too fond of her bridge. Drops a packet on it. She can’t afford to play as high as she does. I’ve told her so. The trouble is that Julia is a born gambler.’ ”

When offered a chance to play a rubber “Lady Julia brightened at once. Bridge was as the breath of life to her”. A four was arranged and after two rubbers had been played “Sir George looked ostentatiously at the clock on the mantlepiece. ‘Hardly worth beginning another’, he remarked. His wife looked annoyed. ‘It’s only a quarter to eleven. A short one.’ ‘They never are, my dear’, said Sir George good temperedly. Anyway, Charles and I have some work to do.” The game broke up with some discussion of a “ ‘ a particularly clever four no trump call’. Reggie mumbled, ‘Bit of a fluke that it came off’.” The flattering response was “Oh no. It was a clever bit of deduction on your part. You deduced from the bidding exactly where the cards must be and you played accordingly. I thought it was brilliant.”

Next morning, we read, Lady Julia is “sitting up in bed scribbling figures on the back of an envelope”. Christie does not elaborate but readers are clearly meant to gather that she is adding up her losses from the night before. Later, Poirot discusses the evening’s bridge with another of the house guests. “ ‘Lady Julia is a good player is she not?’ ‘Much too good in my opinion… It’s almost a profession with her. She plays morning noon and night.’ ‘For high stakes?’ ‘Yes indeed. Much higher than I would care to play for. Indeed, I shouldn’t consider it right.’ ‘She makes a good deal of money at the game?’” Mrs M. “gave a loud and virtuous snort. ‘Huh! She reckons on paying her debts that way but she’s been having a run of bad luck lately, so I’ve heard. She looked last night as if she had something on her mind. The evils of gambling, Monsieur Poirot, are only slightly less than the evils caused by drink’.”

We know that whist and bridge were played both for social reasons and for gambling. Here, with high stakes, the two are combined as a way of increasing the number of people with a motive for murder. Another red herring as it turns out.

In the same 1937 collection is “Dead man’s Mirror”, itself an expanded version of a short story, “The First Gong”, published in 1932. Once again bridge is referred to in passing as a way of introducing a red herring or clue to the readers seeking to identify the murderer. One of the house guests has dropped a small object which looks at first sight like a bullet, but which is in fact a bullet-shaped pencil which had been used in scoring a bridge game earlier that day. “When did you last see it” enquires Poirot? “Well, he had it this afternoon when they were playing bridge, because I noticed him writing with it on the score when I came in to tea.”

Interestingly, the original 1932 short story has the same set up as the 1937 one, namely the murder of a man who was obsessed with the punctuality of guests to dinner after the dinner gong had sounded twice. However, the solution, murderer and motive are entirely different in the two versions of the story. What is important in the present context is that the original short story makes no mention of bridge. It would be nice to argue that this reflects the increased popularity of bridge between 1932 and 1937. This may be true, but the argument would be erroneous. The reason for the bridge reference in the later version of the story is to provide a reason for the bullet-shaped pencil to be noticed on the card table before it appeared as a potential clue when found on the floor near to the body!

There is only a brief reference to card play in “Death on the Nile”. “Most of the other passengers had also gone to bed early. The Doyles remained in the lounge, playing cards with Pennington and Colonel Race at a table in a corner.” The particular game played is not mentioned but the main four-player game at this time would undoubtedly have been bridge. The reference is insignificant in the story except that staying up late to play cards is the manufactured reason why Simon Doyle is still in the lounge when confronted and apparently shot in the leg by his ex-fiancé, Jacqueline de Bellefort. This is the pivotal event in one of Christie’s best-known works.

In “One, two, buckle my shoe” (1940), Poirot and Chief Inspector Japp were attempting to discover the origins of a corpse found in a trunk in a flat in King Leopold mansions.

“Mrs Merton .. had been designated by the porter as Mrs Chapman’s closest friend in the mansions. .. Mrs Merton was a loquacious lady, with snapping black eyes and an elaborate coiffure. It needed no pressure to make her talk. She was only too ready to rise to a dramatic situation. ‘Sylvia Chapman. Well of course I don’t know her really well, not intimately so to speak. We had a few bridge evenings occasionally and we went to the pictures together.”

In a 1941 Poirot short story, “Four and twenty blackbirds”, a bridge party is used incidentally, and unsuccessfully as it turns out, by a murderer to offer an alibi. “If it’s the nephew, Lorrimer, you suspect, I don’t mind telling you here and now that you are barking up the wrong tree. Lorrimer was playing bridge in Wimbledon from eight thirty till midnight. That came out at the inquest.”

By the following year in the “Body in the Library” the game of bridge plays a more significant role in the narrative. One of the murder victims was a “hostess” in a hotel, responsible for entertaining guests. “I pay her to dance, play bridge and keep people happy and amused” says her boss. She was apparently accomplished in handling difficult situations arising from the play. “Bridge, as you know, is a touchy sort of game. The Colonel nodded appreciatedly. His wife was a keen and extremely bad player.”

Later it transpired that none of the bridge players had noticed when the murdered girl had left the scene, because, as one of them noted, “bridge is an absorbing game.”

And just as the denouement is about to be revealed by Miss Marple a character says: “Hand me that paper. Rather an interesting bridge problem.” By 1942 bridge was clearly part of the social DNA.

Agatha Christie wrote novels, but she was also a hugely successful playwright, finding it easier to write dialogue than long passages of explanatory and descriptive prose. In 1954 “Spider’s Web” premiered in London's West End and became her second most successful play (744 performances)⁹ before, of course, both being overtaken by the record-breaking “The Mousetrap”, which has run continuously, apart from an enforced Covid break, since opening in the West End in 1952. Several of Christie’s play scripts were later turned into novels by Charles Osbourne¹⁰ and “The Spiders Web” was published as a novel in 2000. It is from this that I have drawn my quotations which, in turn came directly from the play scripts.

A bridge table is centre stage for most of the play, and the game is a key element of this comedy, if not farcical, drama. Having just found a dead body in her drawing room, the heroine, Clarissa, exclaims: “ ’What am I going to do?’ Fifteen minutes later she was still in the drawing room and murmuring to herself, but she had been busy in the meantime. …Clarissa had been moving the furniture about and had set up a folding bridge table in the centre of the room with cards and markers for bridge, and four upright chairs around the table. Standing at the table Clarissa scribbled figures on one of the markers. ‘Three spades. four hearts, four no trumps, pass’, she muttered, pointing at each hand as it made its call. ‘Five diamonds, pass, six spades, double, and I think they go down.’ She paused for a moment looking down at the table and then continued ‘Let me see, doubled, vulnerable, two tricks, 500! Or should I let them make it? No.’ “

Clarissa – or was it Christie – omitted to point out that for the penalty to be 500, declarer would also have had to be vulnerable, or the penalty would have been 300! But I digress.

Clarissa then persuades three male friends to pretend that they had being playing bridge during the evening and knew nothing of a dead body secreted in the house. The plan was, of course, doomed to failure for two reasons. First, each of the party of four had different stories about who played bridge, why and for how long. During one interview, for example…

“ ‘And then you played bridge’, comments the inspector. ‘That must have been about twenty minutes before my arrival here’ he calculated… Surely you didn’t have time to complete two rubbers, (holding up Clarissa’s marker) and start a third?’… Jeremy looked confused for a moment, but then said quickly ‘Oh no. That first rubber must have been yesterday’s score.’ Indicating the other markers, the inspector remarked thoughtfully ‘Only one person seems to have scored.’ ‘Yes’, Jeremy agreed. ‘I’m afraid we are all a bit lazy about scoring. We left it to Clarissa.’ “

I am intrigued by the use of the term “markers” by Christie. This surely harks back to the days when whist games were scored on physical markers made of card, wood or metal. As I have shown elsewhere¹¹, early attempts to use this type of scoring method for bridge were doomed to failure as the scoring system was far more complex than for whist. As a result, traditional markers were quickly replaced with score pads of various types and pens or pencils replaced the tabs. For Christie, at least, hand written pads were still described as “markers”, rather than score sheets. I wonder whether this term was generally used and, if so, for how long it lasted?

It was obviously assumed by the inspector that all the players – or, at least, one from each pair – would keep the score. In my experience, players are more than happy to let one person do it, not least because even today many players are not fully conversant with the nuances of scoring, particularly over-tricks and bonuses.

In the story, however, the attempt to deceive about the bridge game was ultimately undermined in the same way as in her earlier story “The King of Clubs”. Although in this case, the culprit was the Ace of Spades.

“Constable Jones went across to the sofa…stooping, he saw a playing card lying there, and brought it to the bridge table, throwing it down in front of his superior. ‘What have you got there? The inspector asked. ‘Oh, just a card, sir. Found it over there under the sofa.’ The inspector picked up the card. ‘The Ace of Spades’, he noted, ‘a very interesting card. Here. Wait a moment.’ He turned the card over. Red. It was the same pack. He picked up the red pack of cards from the table and spread them out. The constable helped him sort through the cards. ‘Well, well. No Ace of Spades’, the inspector exclaimed. He rose from his chair. ‘Now, that’s very remarkable, don’t you think Jones?’ he asked, putting the card in his pocket and going across to the sofa. ‘They managed to play bridge without missing the Ace of Spades.’ “

Christie aficionados will know that Christie was not averse to using the same plot device in more than one story. It happens many times. The Spider’s Web is unique, however, in that she uses at least four from earlier works of which the missing card is just one.¹²

Finally, it seems appropriate to close with reference to “Curtain”, Poirot’s final appearance in an Agatha Christie novel. Although the novel was not published until 1975, provoking an obituary in the New York Times, it had been written in the early 1940s. When, living in London during the Blitz, Christie could not be sure of surviving the war so confined the draft to a bank vault during the intervening years!

The action also takes place at Styles, the country house which featured in her first Poirot novel, now a less than ideal country hotel. The narrator, as before, is Captain Hastings.

Hastings recalls: “A rubber was just finished in the drawing room, and I was invited to cut in. I thought it might serve to distract my mind, and I accepted. Boyd Carrington was the one to cut out, and I sat down with Norton and Colonel and Mrs Luttrell".

‘What do you say now, Mr. Norton,’ said Mrs Luttrell. ‘Shall you and I take the other two on. Our late partnership’s been very successful.’

Norton smiled pleasantly, but murmured that perhaps, really, they ought to cut – what?

Mrs Luttrell assented, but with rather an ill-grace, I thought.

Norton and I cut together against the Luttrells. I noted that Mrs Luttrell was definitely displeased by this. She bit her lip, and her charm and Irish brogue disappeared completely for the moment.

I soon found out why. I played on many future occasions with Colonel Luttrell, and he was not really such a bad player. He was what I should describe as a moderate player but inclined to be forgetful. Every now and then he would make some really bad mistake owing to this. But playing with his wife he played mistake after mistake without ceasing. He was obviously nervous of her, and this caused him to play about three times as badly as normal. Mrs Luttrell was a very good player indeed, though rather an unpleasant one to play with. She snatched every conceivable advantage, ignored the rules if her adversary was unaware of them, and enforced them immediately when they served her. She was also extremely adept at a quick sideways glance into her opponent’s hands. In other words, she played to win.

And I soon understood what Poirot had meant by vinegar. At cards her self-restraint failed, and her tongue lashed every mistake her wretched husband made. It was really most uncomfortable for both Norton and myself, and I was thankful when the rubber came to an end.

We both excused ourselves from playing another on the score of the lateness of the hour.”

Later, Poirot tries to encourage Hastings to work out who the prospective murderer might be. “’Figure to yourself, Hastings, that you have here the bridge problem in the paper. You can see all the cards. What you are asked to do is forecast the result of the deal.’ I shook my head. ‘It’s no good, Poirot, I haven’t the least idea.’”

In a later chapter, “The Colonel was looking years younger… He even suggested that there might be some bridge that evening.

‘Daisy here misses her bridge.’ ‘Indeed, I do,’ said Mrs Luttrell. Norton suggested it would be tiring for her. ‘I’ll play one rubber,’ said Mrs Luttrell, and added with a twinkle; ‘And I’ll behave myself and not bite poor George’s head off.’ ‘My dear,’ protested her husband, ‘I know I’m a shocking player.’ ‘And what of that?’ said Mrs Luttrell. ‘Doesn’t it give me grand pleasure badgering and bullying you about it?’ It made us all laugh. ‘Oh, I know my faults, but I’m not going to give them up at my time of life.’”

And later..

“I (Hastings) parted from him downstairs, and looked in on the bridge players for a minute. Norton winked at me when Mrs Luttrell wasn’t looking. The rubber seemed to be progressing with unusual harmony.”

Agatha Christie uses cards and card-play both as a primary focus of a story, and incidentally as a way of creating motives for characters or introducing red herrings to deflect the reader from spotting the solution to her puzzles. In doing so, she gives us an interesting insight into the way which cards in general, and bridge in particular, featured in social life between and during the two world wars. She assumed that most if not all of her readers would have a good working knowledge of card games, play and scoring, and that many would be familiar with the interactions which take place between partners and opponents over the bridge table

Tony Hall, 17 April 2025

Footnotes

1. If anyone can Identify any that I have missed, I would be grateful to hear from them.
2. The one exception is the play “Spider’s Web” which was premiered in 1954.However, as is describe in the text, this draws heavily on novels and short stories written much earlier.
3. Publication dates alone are unreliable as some stories, for example, were written long before they appeared in print, or were reproduced in an anthology long after first publication in a magazine or overseas.
4. 1916
5. Tony Hall, The Origin of Patience Games in English, October 2023
6. £1 in 1929 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £79.61 today, an increase of £78.61 over 95 years.
7. Mark Aldridge, Poirot: The greatest detective in the world, Harper Collins, 2020 p. 108
8. Is it worth pointing out that when the murder occurs in Cards on the Table, Poirot doesn’t remember his earlier conversation with Hastings. Perhaps I should remember that these are not real people!
9. The other successful play was Witness for the Prosecution, 1952 (458 performances) which was recently revived in London to great acclaim.
10. Black Coffee, The Unexpected Guest. The Spider’s Web
11. Tony Hall, Bridge Markers and Bridge Scoring Methods, July 2023
12. The other three are: excessively cheap accommodation; valuable stamps on an envelope, and a young girl believing they have killed someone using witchcraft.