The first Christie mystery I read was Cat Among the Pigeons, and thereafter, I devoured Christie's books as fast as I could locate them. One of her most famous mysteries, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (written in 1926), introduced me to the game of Mah Jongg. In Chapter 16, titled "An Evening at Mah Jong," four of the book's characters play the game, and the evening ends with Dr. Sheppard--in the heat of his triumph at Mah Jongg--carelessly revealing an important clue.
Reproduced here--with extraneous information elided--is the description of the evening.
Chapter 16: “An Evening at Mah Jong”
That night we had a little Mah Jong party. This kind of simple entertainment is very popular in King’s Abbot. The guests arrive in galoshes and waterproofs after dinner. They partake of coffee and later of cake, sandwiches, and tea.
On this particular night our guests were Miss Ganett and Colonel Carter, who lives near the church. A good deal of gossip is handed round at these evenings, sometimes seriously interfering with the game in progress. We used to play bridge—chatty bridge of the worst description. We find Mah Jong much more peaceful. The irritated demand as to why on earth your partner did not lead a certain card is entirely done away with, and though we still express criticisms frankly, there is not the same acrimonious spirit.
“Very cold evening, eh, Sheppard?” said Colonel Carter, standing with his back to the fire….”Reminds me of the Afghan passes.”
“Indeed?” I said politely.
“Very mysterious business this about poor Ackroyd,” continued the colonel, accepting a cup of coffee…. “Between you and me, Sheppard, I’ve heard the word blackmail mentioned!” The colonel gave me the look which might be tabulated “one man of the world to another.” “A woman in it, no doubt,” he said. “Depend upon it, a woman in it.”
Caroline and Miss Ganett joined us at this minute. Miss Ganett drank coffee whilst Caroline got out the Mah Jong box and poured out the tiles upon the table. “Washing the tiles,” said the colonel facetiously. “That’s right—washing the tiles, as we used to say in the Shanghai Club.” It is the private opinion of both Caroline and myself that Colonel Carter has never been in the Shanghai Club in his life. More, that he has never been farther east than India, where he juggled with tins of bully beef and plum and apple jam during the Great War. But the colonel is determinedly military, and in King’s Abbot we permit people to indulge their little idiosyncrasies freely.
“Shall we begin?” said Caroline.
We sat round the table. For some five minutes there was complete silence, owing to the fact that there is tremendous secret competition amongst us as to who can build their wall quickest.
“Go on, James,” said Caroline at last. “You’re East Wind.”
I discarded a tile. A round or two proceeded, broken by the monotonous remarks of “Three Bamboos,” “Two Circles,” “Pung, and frequently from Miss Ganett “Unpung,” owing to that lady’s habit of too hastily claiming tiles to which she had no right.
“I saw Flora Ackroyd this morning,” said Miss Ganett. “Pung—no—unpung. I made a mistake.”
“Four Circles,” said Caroline. “Where did you see her?”
“She didn’t see me,” said Miss Ganett, with tremendous significance only to be met with in small villages.
“Ah!” said Caroline interestedly. “Chow.”
“I believe,” said Miss Ganett, temporarily diverted, “That it’s the right thing nowadays to say ‘Chee’ not ‘Chow.’”
“Nonsense,” said Caroline. “I have always said ‘Chow.’”
“In the Shanghai Club,” said Colonel Carter, “they say ‘Chow.’” Miss Ganett retired, crushed.
“What were you saying about Flora Ackroyd?” asked Caroline, after a moment or two devoted to the game. “Was she with anyone?”
“Very much so,” said Miss Ganett.
The eyes of the two ladies met, and seemed to exchange information. “Really,” said Caroline interestedly. “Is that it? Well, it doesn’t surprise me in the least.”
“We’re waiting for you to discard, Miss Caroline,” said the colonel. He sometimes affects the pose of the bluff male, intent on the game and indifferent to gossip. But nobody is deceived.
“If you ask me,” said Miss Ganett. (“Was that a Bamboo you discarded, dear? Oh! No, I see now—it was a Circle.) As I was saying, if you ask me, Flora’s been exceedingly lucky….”
“How’s that, Miss Ganett?” asked the colonel. “I’ll Pung that Green Dragon. How do you make out that Miss Flora’s been lucky?”....
“I mayn’t know very much about crime,” said Miss Ganett, with the air of one who knows everything there is to know, “but I can tell you one thing. The first question that’s always asked is: ‘Who last saw the deceased alive?’ And the person who did is regarded with suspicion. Now, Flora Ackroyd last saw her uncle alive…. It’s my opinion…that Ralph Paton is staying away on her account, to draw suspicion away from her.”
“Come, now,” I protested mildly, “you surely can’t suggest that a young girl like Flora Ackroyd is capable of stabbing her uncle in cold blood?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Miss Ganett. “I’ve just been reading a book from the library about the underworld of Paris, and it says that some of the worst women criminals are young girls with the faces of angels.”
“That’s in France,” said Caroline instantly.
“Just so,” said the colonel. “Now, I’ll tell you a very curious thing—a story that was going round the Bazaars in India….”
The colonel’s story was one of interminable length, and of curiously little interest….
It was Caroline who brought the colonel’s story to a close by fortunately going Mah Jong. After the slight unpleasantness always occasioned by my corrections of Caroline’s somewhat faulty arithmetic, we started a new hand.
“East Wind passes,” said Caroline. “I’ve got an idea of my own about Ralph Paton. Three Characters. But I’m keeping it to myself for the present.”
“Are you dear?” said Miss Ganett. “Chow—I mean Pung.”
“Yes,” said Caroline firmly….
“Pung,” said Miss Ganett. “No—Unpung. I suppose that now the doctor’s in with M. Poirot he knows all the secrets?”
“Far from it,” I said.
“James is so modest,” said Caroline. “Ah! A concealed Kong.”
The colonel gave vent to a whistle. For the moment gossip was forgotten. “Your own Wind, too,” he said. “And you’ve got two Pungs of Dragons. We must be careful. Miss Caroline’s out for a big hand.”
We played for some minutes with no irrelevant conversation. “This M. Poirot now,” said Colonel Carter, “is he really such a great detective?”
“The greatest the world has ever known,” said Caroline solemnly. “He had to come here incognito to avoid publicity.”
“Chow,” said Miss Ganett. “Quite wonderful for our little village, I’m sure. By the way, Clara—my maid, you know—is great friends with Elsie, the housemaid at Fernly, and what do you think Elsie told her? That there’s been a lot of money stolen, and it’s her opinion…that the parlormaid had something to do with it….
Miss Ganett stopped for breath, and the colonel, who was totally uninterested in the servant question, remarked that in the Shanghai Club brisk play was the invariable rule.
We had a round of brisk play.
“That Miss Russell,” said Caroline. “She came here pretending to consult James on Friday morning. It’s my opinion she wanted to see where the poisons were kept. Five Characters.”
“Chow,” said Miss Ganett. “What an extraordinary idea? I wonder if you can be right.”
“Talking of poisons,” said the colonel. “Eh—what? Haven’t I discarded? Oh! Eight Bamboos.”
“Mah Jong!” said Miss Ganett.
Caroline was very much annoyed, “One Red Dragon,” she said regretfully, “and I should have had a hand of three doubles.”
“I’ve had two Red Dragons all the time,” I mentioned.
“So exactly like you, James,” said Caroline reproachfully. “You’ve no conception of the spirit of the game.”
I myself thought I had played rather cleverly. I should have had to pay Caroline an enormous amount if she had gone Mah Jong. Miss Ganett’s Mah Jong was of the poorest variety possible, as Caroline did not fail to point out to her.
East Wind passed, and we started a new hand in silence.
“What I was going to tell you just now was this,” said Caroline.
“Yes?” said Miss Ganett encouragingly.
“My idea about Ralph Paton, I mean.”
“Yes, dear,” said Miss Ganett, still more encouragingly. “Chow!”
“It’s a sign of weakness to Chow so early,” said Caroline severely. “You should go for a big hand.”
“I know,” said Miss Ganett. “You were saying—about Ralph Paton, you know?”
“Yes. Well, I’ve a pretty shrewd idea where he is.”
We all stopped to stare at her…. [Caroline explains a complicated, inaccurate theory.]
“Why, dear me,” said Miss Ganett suddenly, “I’m Mah Jong all the time, and I never noticed it.”
Caroline’s attention was distracted from her own inventive exercises. She pointed out to Miss Ganett that a hand consisting of mixed suits and too many Chows was hardly worth going Mah Jong on. Miss Ganett listened imperturbably and collected her counters. “Yes dear, I know what you mean,” she said. “But it rather depends on what kind of a hand you have to start with, doesn’t it?”
“You’ll never get the big hands if you don’t go for them,” said Caroline.
“Well, we must all play our own way, mustn’t we?” said Miss Ganett. She looked down at her counters. “After all, I’m up, so far.”
Caroline, who was considerably down, said nothing.
East Wind passed, and we set to once more…. Caroline and Miss Ganett were both slightly ruffled as is often the case during one of these festive evenings.
“If you would only play a little quicker, dear,” said Caroline, as Miss Ganett hesitated over her discard. “The Chinese put down the tiles so quickly it sounds like little birds pattering.”
For some few minutes we played like the Chinese.
“You haven’t contributed much to the sum of information, Sheppard,” said Colonel Carter genially. “You’re a sly dog. Hand in glove with the great detective, and not a hint as to the way things are going.”
“James is an extraordinary creature,” said Caroline. “He can not bring himself to part with information.” She looked at me with some disfavor.
“I assure you,” I said, “that I don’t know anything. Poirot keeps his own counsel.”
“Wise man,” said the colonel with a chuckle. “He doesn’t give himself away. But they’re wonderful fellows, these foreign detectives. Up to all sorts of dodges, I believe.”
“Pung,” said Miss Ganett, in a tone of quiet triumph. “And Mah Jong.”
The situation became more strained. It was annoyance at Miss Ganett’s going Mah Jong for the third time running which prompted Caroline to say to me as we built a fresh wall: “You are too tiresome, James. You sit there like a dead head, and say nothing at all!”….
I did not answer for a moment. I was overwhelmed and intoxicated. I had read of there being such a thing as the Perfect Winning—going Mah Jong on one’s original hand. I had never hoped to hold the hand myself. With suppressed triumph I laid my hand face upwards on the table. “As they say in the Shanghai Club,” I remarked, “Tin-ho—the Perfect Winning!”
The colonel’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
“Upon my soul,” he said. “What an extraordinary thing. I never saw that happen before!
[If you are a Christie fan, check out another one of my blogs,
No comments:
Post a Comment