Idea

After the Christmas Quiz grand round, I told Vivian the questions I put up.

She pointed out coldly, "Fifteen pairs of hands ? Alas, the idea of your mentor's distinction viva really gets you."

As always, my wife was right. In fact, I told the story here not too long ago (see http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2009/11/contd.html).

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And I have a deja vu feeling of a scene in The ABC Murders, when Hercule Poirot described his "dream crime" to Arthur Hastings:

"Supposing that four people sit down to play bridge and one, the odd man out, sits in a chair by the fire. At the end of the evening the man by the fire is found dead. One of the four, while he is dummy, has gone over and killed him, and, intent on the play of the hand, the other three have not noticed. Ah, there would be a crime for you! Which of the four was it?"

Alas, it didn't take long before Poirot met exactly this case in Cards on the Table.

PS. According to the chronology of Agatha Christie, both stories happened in 1936. The usual Poirot would actually try to find out who was eavesdropping when he was telling his idea to Hastings (who spent all his time with Poirot during the ABC incident and was back Argentina immediately afterwards - he had no opportunity of telling anybody else).