Thirteen Diamonds

better than Ida. I preferred that Ida be the murderer, possibly because I didn't like her dog. This wasn't coming out right. Reality wasn't always convenient. Maybe I should drop the whole thing.
     
                       *    *    *
     
    I wanted to find the answer to one more question before I went back to my normal life. At a decent hour, after most people were up, I called Wesley Phipps, the president of the bridge club, and asked him who kept the cards we played with. After finding out that he kept them I made an appointment to go over to his apartment.
    Wesley and his wife, Angie, had a two-bedroom apartment that was larger than my one-bedroom model. Angie had some degenerative disease and was confined to a wheelchair, but the apartment was spotless. She treated me like a formal visitor, seating me on the sofa and having Wesley serve me coffee and little cookies on the coffee table. I can make a pig of myself with sweets, so I took two cookies and then didn't look at the plate again.
    Wesley, in addition to being president of the bridge club, was also president of the residents' association. He was balding, red-faced and overweight, which was not typical of Silver Acres residents. But he doted on Angie and took good care of her. Without his help, she would have to live in the building that provided skilled nursing care.
    I chatted with Angie and Wesley for a few minutes. I am not big on small talk and began to get antsy so I produced the 13 diamonds I had taken from Gerald's memorial and asked Wesley, “Did you pick up the rest of this deck, by any chance?”
    “Why yes,” he said, leaving the room and coming back with a box of cards. “I took all the cards and score-pads after the commotion about Gerald died down, just like I always do.”
    “That was a terrible tragedy,” interjected Angie, who was not a member of the bridge club. “It must have been awfully hard to watch.”
    I murmured something and Wesley said, “I saw you pick up Gerald's hand and I was going to ask you for his cards, but then I saw the 13 diamonds and realized their significance. And when I saw them on his memorial I thought it was appropriate. For a bridge player to die with a perfect hand, that is the ultimate. I will always envy Gerald.”
    “Just don't imitate him,” Angie said.
    “May I see the other cards?” I asked. Wesley handed me the box.  It was one of those standard playing card boxes that had the geometric design of the backs of the cards reproduced on the box. I compared the design on the box to that on one of the 13 diamonds. It was close but not quite the same. I compared more cards from Gerald's hand with the box. Same result. I pulled the rest of the deck out of the box. Those cards had the same design on their backs as did the diamonds, so together they made up a complete deck.
    Is this the box these cards originally came in?” I asked.
    Yes. I buy all the cards and keep track of them all.”
    He was one of those fastidious people and I was sure he did.
    “Look at this.” I showed Wesley the differences between the backs of the cards and the design on the box.
    He said, “I can’t understand it. All the decks are the same.  I bought them all at the same time.”
    He lumbered into the other room and returned with several more decks.
    We inspected those decks. Their designs matched their boxes, which matched the box that contained Gerald's deck. Only the design on the cards that had produced Gerald's perfect hand was different from that of any of the other decks or boxes.
    Wesley kept saying, “I can't understand it,” as we became convinced of the difference.
    “What if this deck has been switched with the original deck?” I asked him.
    “But who would do a thing like that?” Wesley asked, his face becoming almost purple. “And how?”
    “Who? The person who wanted Gerald...to get a hand of 13 diamonds.” I had almost used the word “murdered.” “How—or when—I’m not sure.”
    “But...but,” he sputtered, “do you mean it was all a joke? That the hand wasn't real?”
    “It looks that way.”
    “But I don't think that's funny. Especially, in view of the consequences.”
    “No, it isn't funny. However, I think we, the bridge club, should do something as a sort of permanent memorial to Gerald. What if we had the 13 diamonds framed and hung in the recreation room?”
    “Well...I don't know,” said Wesley.
    “We don't have to tell anyone else that the hand