Jessica's Life Journey (11) - A Brideless Groom

The plot of what happened on the way to the wedding wasn't as complicated and confusing as the one in the comedic situation of “A funny thing happened on the way to the forum”.

On the contrary, it was fairly straightforward; there was no confusion about the venue or the time – St Chad church, 12.00 – or who was getting married. The only thing that was missing was one of the participants.

It is traditional for a bride-to-be to arrive late and the groom and his best man spent a considerable amount of time in the pub opposite the church to allow for that.

Mellowed by a couple of glasses of single malt they were in a good mood when they went into St. Chad to wait for her to walk the aisle to the strains of “Here Comes the Bride”.

The bride's absence became more evident when the vicar said that the next wedding was scheduled to take place and the ceremony had to be cancelled.

There had been no news of her whereabouts and poor Will, jilted at the altar, went home with his tail between his legs.

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I was preparing to undertake a new case when all this happened. Although he had invited me to his wedding, I decided not to go.

It would have been too painful for me to see someone I was fond of, perhaps too fond, disappear from my life because my selfish decision had pushed him into a rush engagement.

Perhaps I should have eaten humble pie and admitted I had made the wrong choice by opting for the easy way out when I refused his offer of marriage, but it was he who was apologetic for having acted in an asinine manner.

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It wasn't only for sentimental reasons that I was glad that my partner had come back to the fold. His technical expertise was matched by a solid grasp of the poker game and that was going to be the subject of the agency's next investigation.

Grateful for the chance to rejoin the firm, he was raring to go.
My contact was, once again, the taxi driver. He had taken part in private poker games organised by a friend of his. Both of them had suffered heavy losses and suspected that some cheating was going on.

Our brief was to observe and report any irregular patterns with a view to recoup the ill-gotten money and ban the transgressors from further games.

Will explained to me the various methods of gaining an illegal advantage over other players.
Apart from marked cards, sleights of hands when dealing, peeking at opponents' cards, there are other ways that are not strictly illegal but they are unethical and can ruin the integrity of the game, like 'soft play' (purposely avoid betting against a confederate to eliminate other players and then split the gains).

One particular trick is to deal 'good hands' to encourage big bets and b6eating them with a (doctored) stronger hand.
We sat alongside the assembled players, not taking part but drinking cocktails and eating salted peanuts, pretending to be disinterested in the proceedings.

We soon spotted the  dealer dispensing cards of high value from the bottom of the pack to his accomplice and low ones from the top to the rest of the participants,

Our employer needed proof of any wrongdoing so Will brought along a miniature camera to record the miscreant.

I believe that today we earned our corn. The future of the EagleEye Detective Agency seems assured.

© Luigi Pagano 2022