Let us go back some nine and a half years to the finals of the Crime Writers' Association annual knockout team tournament, held over two sixteen-board, two-and-a–half hour sessions on the first Sunday in May, 2015, in the stately rooms of Beaufort Manor, Old Windsor, settings that would, appropriately, have made a fine backdrop for a good, old-fashioned, "whodunit".
Expectations ran high. The competition had thus far produced excellent play and some very close and hard-fought matches. Indeed, both semifinal matches had gone down to the last board. In the first match, the fourth seeds, Raymond Chandler's team, had beaten the defending champions, Dashiell Hammett's top-seeded "Maltese Falcons", by a mere 2 IMPs, while the second semifinal had been equally close with Dame Agatha Christie's third-seeded team edging out the second seeds captained by Mickey Spillane.
Both captains chose to keep their pairings unchanged in the finals: In the first session, Dame Agatha played North-South with Hercule Poirot against Raymond Chandler and Lauren Bacall in the open room. The closed room saw the in-form pair of actor Robert Mitchum and sleuth Philip Marlowe sitting North-South against Jane Marple and Geraldine McEwan.
It would have been difficult to predict that the match would be as close as the semis had been, but the authors and stars combined to produce a thriller worthy of their calling. From the very outset of the match, the two teams traded blow for veritable blow. In the first session, for example, the lead changed hands 5 times with neither side being ahead by more than 11 IMPs, the margin by which the Chandler team was leading going into board 16. West, dealer at unfavorable vulnerability, passed in both rooms:
North | ||
♠ 6 | ||
♥ K 9 8 3 | ||
West | ♦ A J 10 6 5 2 | East |
♠ A Q 10 2 | ♣ 5 2 | ♠ K 7 5 4 |
♥ 6 2 | ♥ A Q J 7 4 | |
♦ K 9 8 4 | South | ♦ 7 |
♣ 8 7 4 | ♠ J 9 8 3 | ♣ A Q 9 |
♥ 10 5 | ||
♦ Q 3 | ||
♣ K J 10 6 3 |
In the open room, Dame Agatha, with a 4-card heart suit along with her 6 diamonds, made the disciplined choice not to pre-empt with a weak 2♦ bid and passed. Bacall opened 1♥ and the uncontested bidding ended with Chandler, West, as declarer in 4♠. Dame Agatha led the ♣5 and although Chandler played well by inserting dummy's ♣9, he had no clues as to the distribution and failed by one trick
In the closed room, Mitchum pre-empted with 2♦, despite his heart holding, and Geraldine McEwan, East, overcalled with 2♥. After Miss Marple bid 2NT, she bid 3♠ which Miss Marple raised to 4♠. Marlowe led the ♦Q. Geraldine ducked and ruffed the diamond continuation in hand. A small spade to dummy's ♠Q was followed by the successful finesse of the ♥J. She re-entered dummy with ♠Q – she did not want to risk Mitchum having the doubleton ♠J - and repeated the heart finesse. On the play of a small heart from her hand, Marlow discarded a club. Geraldine knew from the bidding he was also out of diamonds and was thus now down to two spades and 4 clubs. She trumped the heart in dummy, played her last spade to her ♠K, leaving this position:
Mitchum | ||
♠ - | ||
♥ K | ||
Marple | ♦ A J 10 | McEwan |
♠ - | ♣ 5 | ♠ - |
♥ - | ♥ A 7 | |
♦ K 9 | Marlowe | ♦ - |
♣ 8 7 4 | ♠ J | ♣ A Q 9 |
♥ - | ||
♦ - | ||
♣ K J 10 6 |
She now cashed her high hearts. Irrespective of whether Marlowe ruffed or not, he could not prevent McEwan making 3 tricks and the contract – two hearts and a club or one heart and two clubs. "Quite, quite brilliant, my dear." quipped Miss Marple. How right she was!
The combined score of 720 - 620 for the vulnerable spade game, plus the 100 earned in the open room, was worth 12 IMPs and gave the Christie team a one IMP lead going into the second session.
The Christie team remained in their places for the second session while the Chandler pairs swapped rooms. Dinner had turned out to be more a banquet than not, with Burgundy and Bordeaux in abundance, and both teams were in fine spirits, so to speak, for the second half. However, their cold-sober play over the last 16 boards betrayed the fact. Neither side gave an inch. Play finished in the closed room first and with the Christie team leading by 10 IMPs with one board to go, the fans awaited the final board with bated breath.
Board 32. West dealer. East-West vulnerable:
Christie | ||
♠ K J 9 2 | ||
♥ Q J 10 9 | ||
Mitchum | ♦ 10 8 | Marlow |
♠ 10 6 5 4 | ♣ 8 7 2 | ♠ 8 7 3 |
♥ K 8 3 | ♥ 6 5 | |
♦ A J 6 5 4 | Poirot | ♦ Q 9 3 |
♣ A | ♠ A Q | ♣ 10 6 5 4 3 |
♥ A 7 4 2 | ||
♦ K 7 2 | ||
♣ K Q J 9 |
Mitchum opened the bidding with 1♦, which was passed around to the redoubtable Hercule Poirot. The Belgian doubled for take-out. Dame Agatha answered with 2♦, giving him a choice of the majors. Poirot bid game in Hearts, the same contract as Lauren Bacall had brought home with aplomb in the closed room.
Mitchum led the ♣A and stopped to survey dummy before continuing. He was aware of his team's deficit and realized desperate measures were called for. He could see three tricks in his hand and he had to find a way to reach his partner to give him a club ruff and the setting trick. He could see no other way than through diamonds. He also realized that if declarer had the singleton ♦K, under leading the ♦A would give declarer an overtrick, but if so, the contract could not be defeated anyway, and the overtrick would not influence the outcome of the match. So he led the ♦J at trick 2. Poirot had no choice but to win the trick with his ♦K. In desperation Poirot played the ♥A, followed by a small heart, hoping that Mitchum had started with the doubleton ♥K but Mitchum won the trick, played a small diamond to Marlow's ♦Q and ruffed the club return with his last heart. One down, 50 points, plus the 420 earned in the closed room was worth yes, you guessed it, 10 IMPs. The Match had ended in a tie.
The final curtain fell with the two captains jointly holding aloft the fine silver trophy but not before Dame Agatha had issued a dire warning about the future of the tournament and, indeed, that of the Crime Writers' Association itself. The Association was facing a continuing decline in membership and, with it, shrinking coffers. She rued the fact that they would not be able afford to sponsor the annual team tournament in the next and following years unless and until the tide of membership enrollment would be turned significantly. She stressed the need to face the reality that reading of books in general, not only those of crime novels, had given way in popularity to watching movies and series on television, some of which were adapted from best selling novels but more-and-more the fare offered on channels like Netflix was made exclusively for television.
"In the not-too-distant future, we will need to attract television writers and screenwriters to join our ranks", she advised "and the designation 'crime' is too limiting. We will need to widen the scope of our constitution to include authors of all forms of mystery, other than just crime." When later asked to clarify her last remark, she gave as examples, the prolific and popular British author, Robert Goddard, who had written many books involving mysteries surrounding human interactions, often in the context of multigenerational or historical events; and Davd Shore, creator and screenwriter of the iconic series 'House", in which the misanthropic Dr. Gregory House had pursued, with his team, the nature and source of their patients' mysterious ailments with the zeal and ingenuity of a Sherlock Holmes, episode by episode over eight highly successful seasons.
As it transpired, Dame Agatha's warnings went unheeded for almost half a year before an emergency meeting of the Association had to be called to resolve the dire straits into which it had now falling at an accelerating rate bewildering rate in the eyes of the surviving members. Fortunately, it was decided to waste no more time in following the advice the great authoress had given at the conclusion of the team tournament finals earlier that year. The meeting unanimously passed resolutions to expand the scope of the Association to include mysteries of all types; to reconstitute the Association, accordingly as the Mystery Writers' association (MWA); and to open membership of the MWA to include writers of mystery movies for both the big and small screens and screenwriters for original television series.
The reconstitution to the MWA saved the day. Membership grew steadily to the point where, today, it is almost three times higher than it had ever been. The financial recovery has been such that, but for Covid, the annual team competition could have been reinstated in 2021. Be that as it may, the preliminary rounds of the 2024/2025 competition have already been completed, eliminating 64 of the record number of 77 teams that had entered. The 14 surviving teams will be joined by the 2015 winners, the Christie and Chandler teams, as the number one and two seeds going into the round of 16, which is scheduled to be completed by Christmas. The tournament will continue as it had done in past, with quarter finals in January, culminating in the finals on the first Sunday in May 2025.