The new member

As a warm winter was giving way to a warm spring the bridge club received a rather odd letter:

Dear Secretary of the Bridge Club

It is my honour to be in communication with you and to beg that, owing to my impending relocation to your area from a few miles south of your esteemed airport, you might countenance an application from me to plight my unworthy destiny in alignment with yours, in short, to join your club. Yours respectfully
Sinclair Whitlands

The club’s committee had never received a letter quite like it and were unsure how to act. Eventually, Frieda made the suggestion that Mr Whitlands might partner her for one game, and she could assess whether he was a bridge player or lunatic (the club not recognising these categories might overlap).

Thus, one Wednesday night at the end of August, Frieda found herself greeting a figure who seemed not to have marked the passing of Queen Victoria. Impeccably attired, razor-sharp creases in his trousers, Sinclair Whitlands would have looked at home in the stately home of a duchess. His bridge skills seemed more up to date but still Frieda had to explain that, nowadays, the weak no trump held sway.

Frieda’s anxieties were somewhat set to rest when Mr Whitlands declared 3NT as South after the following auction:

West	North	East	South
		1♥	1NT
Pass	3NT	Pass	Pass
Pass

A little to everyone’s surprise West led ♥K and Frieda anxiously displayed her dummy.

	♠54 ♥A32 ♦AT9863 ♣87
	♠AK32 ♥Q64 ♦KQ ♣QJT3

With impassive gravity Mr Whitlands played low on the first trick! It then didn’t matter what West led next. Mr Whitlands was soon able to play ♦K, then ♦Q which he overtook with dummy’s ace, force out the ♦J, and still have the ♥A entry for the long diamonds.

As Frieda afterwards noted, had Sinclair greedily taken the ♥A at trick one there would have been no way to establish the diamonds and the contract would have failed. However, as a result of her recommendation Mr Sinclair Whitlands was duly admitted to the Bridge Club at the end of September. His bridge playing abilities were still somewhat difficult to assess since his knowledge of modern bidding would have been out of date even in 1975 (when he had last played seriously).

His second game as a new member was with Voluptua (Randy having decided that a rare night of studying was essential). Their hasty discussion before start of play began with Mr Whitlands bowing low to Voluptua, remarking that he was “charmed, Ma’am”, which so surprised her that she was rendered uncharacteristically speechless.

As they sat down to play they had agreed only on “natural bidding”. The first board revealed some misunderstandings all round. Mr Whitlands was West and the auction was

West	North	East	South
1NT	Pass	2♣	Pass
4♣	Pass	4♥	Pass
7♣	Pass	Pass	Pass

This was bizarre since the West and East hands were

♠A72 ♥AK ♦542 ♣AK762		♠K3 ♥QJ72 ♦AT976 ♣Q8

The reader may justifiably wonder what on earth was going on but the explanations are charmingly simple. Sinclair was playing a Goren 16-18 1NT unbeknown to Voluptua. Her 2♣ was Stayman but Sinclair thought it was a suit so, with excellent support, raised to 4♣. Naturally, Voluptua thought this was Gerber and answered 4♥ to show one ace.

Sinclair was now rather perplexed but thought that Voluptua must be showing a good hand so bid a grand slam in her suit (or so he supposed). Even more confused, Voluptua passed and prepared to play holding a doubleton trump alone.

A bemused South led a spade. Voluptua looked pale but drew a deep breath (thereby distracting several passing spectators). She took the lead with the King, played a spade to the Ace and ruffed a spade with ♣8. Then she played ♣Q, crossed to dummy with ♥A, and played two more trumps. Luckily trumps divided 3–3. So now she played the ♥K and crossed to her hand with ♦A. Her ♥QJ won the final two tricks.

Sinclair had watched the play closely, realising that some gremlins had disturbed the auction. “Fortune favours the brave” he declared of his own final bid, adding gallantly “And none but the brave deserve the fair” to which Voluptua blushed prettily. The rather crusty glum old gentleman sitting South caught the full force of Voluptua’s dazzling smile and perked up considerably.

After Sinclair had been a member for several weeks his air of formal reserve and archaic speech had endeared him to many of the other members of the club, but his manner also prevented anyone getting to know him properly. The first chink in this personal armour appeared one night when he was playing with Randy Hardwick who in age, social skills, and manners was as remote from Sinclair as any other in the club.

Mr Whitlands had observed that Randy was in thrall to Voluptua and had been perturbed about the dastardly Weasel’s insolence towards her before play began (the Weasel was insolent to everyone but he particularly upset Voluptua, and Randy had been too far away to intervene). Halfway through the evening Sinclair and Randy were North-South against the Weasel and Ferret.

“Sir”, said Sinclair, addressing himself to the Weasel “you are a cad and a bounder”. The words were so dated that the Weasel was unsure whether this was a compliment. Sinclair’s indignation so affected him that he rather overbid. He was East and the West-East hands were:

♠AKT9742 ♥T96 ♦5 ♣KQ		♠3 ♥A7542 ♦AT7642 ♣A

The spirited auction was

West	North	East	South
1♠	Pass	2♦	Pass
2♠	Pass	3♥	Pass
4♠	Pass	6♠	Pass
Pass	Pass

The Weasel led a low club, and Randy contemplated the dummy with a sinking heart. The only chance appeared to be to find diamonds 3-3 but, even so, there did not appear to be sufficient entries to set them up.

Seeing his partner’s discomfort Sinclair murmured: “Play this contract for God, Glory, and Voluptua, my boy”. This grandiose encouragement proved effective, for Randy suddenly realised that he could acquire a much needed dummy entry by ruffing his second club honour.

So the play went: ♣A, ♦A, diamond ruff, ruff the ♣K, another diamond ruff (hooray, diamonds fell 3–3); two rounds of trumps (they split 3-2) and another trump which the defenders took. However, diamonds were now established, the ♥A was an entry and all Randy’s heart losers thereby disappeared.

Sinclair fixed the Weasel with an unwavering stare: “Sir, a higher power has safeguarded my partner’s endeavours; see to it that you renounce your allegiance to the lower powers”. For once, the Weasel was speechless.

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