Constable by the Stream (A Constable Nick Mystery Book 12) Read online

  To conform to the then prevailing law, there were sets of rules to govern each of the four legal types of lottery. One which rarely featured in police work was the lottery of an art union. Members of an art union drew lots, the winners being allowed to retain certain works of art for a specified period.

  The other three types of lottery were more widespread i.e.:

  (1) Small lotteries which were incidental to popular entertainments like jumble sales, dinners, dances and sporting events. Tickets for those were sold and drawn on the premises during the event and it was a rule (often broken) that no cash prizes could be given. The prizes were generally things like boxes of chocolates, groceries, toiletries and similar gifts.

  (2) Private lotteries which were restricted to members of a society, say a football supporters’ club. In this case, all the proceeds, less expenses, had to be donated to the charity and certain rules had to be followed.

  (3) Registered lotteries. These had to be registered with the local authority and organized for charitable purposes, but the prizes could be larger, like holidays overseas or TV sets, provided the value of each prize (at that time) did not exceed £100. Tickets for these lotteries could be sold before or during the event, and sold off the premises. Each ticket had to contain the name of the charity, the promoter of the raffle and the cost of each ticket (which should not exceed one shilling — 5p).

  From time to time, organizations wanted to stage a massive raffle with a huge prize like a motor car, but the trick was to remove the competition from the status of a lottery. This could be done by incorporating some act of skill, like estimating the number of peas in a jam jar, estimating how many yards a car could be driven on one gallon of petrol, estimating the weight of a cake or a baby, or calculating the time the pointers of a clock would stop if it wasn’t wound up. All kinds of skilful deeds were introduced to remove such contests from the lottery laws. Lots of organizations ran these so-called prize competitions instead of raffles, but the good old village raffle continued to flourish in spite of any newfangled ideas.

  At most village raffles, numbered cloakroom tickets in various colours were sold to people at social functions, but the rules of these small lotteries were generally ignored or not even considered. Little old ladies cheerfully broke the law by organizing raffles for cash prizes or selling the tickets around the village before the event took place. It would not surprise me if committees continue to break the law concerning small lotteries, but who complains? And who knows what those laws are? Who, apart from the village constable, was then familiar with the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act of 1963?

  A village constable had to close his eyes to some breaches of that statute, such as those occasions where, for example, a teddy bear was raffled by tickets sold in the village shop. As this was not ‘incidental to an entertainment’ like a dinner, dance, social event or sporting fixture, it was an unlawful lottery. It might be argued by some that shopping was ‘entertainment’, but it is doubtful whether the courts would agree with that interpretation. But as the proceeds were going to charity, who would complain?

  If, on the other hand, some wily character was making money for himself by this means, then, of course, we would step in and prosecute. It’s a matter of applying the law with common sense, because to rigidly enforce every rule and regulation, as some politicians demand, would result in a police state.

  In such cases, suitable advice was often given to the unwitting law-breakers. I did hear of some strange raffles — one man who worked in a large factory always raffled his wage packets and made more from that than he did from his wages. As the dastardly deed was not on my patch, I was not concerned with that enterprising illegality. Another man, again not on my beat, decided to raffle his house when it was on the market for a long time, but I don’t think it was a successful venture. He failed to sell enough tickets to cover the value of his property.

  To give most of the village raffle organizers due credit, they did come to me for advice when they were about to embark upon a new project. In many cases, I was able to help, sometimes suggesting that an act of skill be incorporated to provide greater appeal, especially when it was for a worthwhile cause. And, as Aidensfield’s chief raffle consultant, I was invariably asked to buy tickets, but my record of wins was abysmal. Some people always win and some never do; I was in the latter category, while a friend who worked in a turkey factory always won several turkeys at Christmas, and a local publican always won bottles of whisky.

  It was during my involvement with raffles in Aidensfield and the surrounding villages that I noticed a curious phenomenon. The strangeness did not make itself immediately apparent, but materialized only after I’d attended about a dozen social events in various village halls.

  I noticed that every raffle prize list contained a tin of sardines. I guessed the donor was a local grocer. The local licensees always gave bottles of whisky or gin, the butchers gave hams or pheasants, the garages gave cans of oil or vouchers for free petrol, the hairdressers gave vouchers for free hair-styling and local restaurants offered free meals for two in cosy candlelit places. As the village constable, there was little I could offer by way of a professional prize — I could hardly offer fine-free vouchers for speeding or the chance to drink after hours without being caught — and so I tried to buy something different for each raffle, like an ornament, perfume, book, picture and so forth. With about a dozen villages and hamlets on my patch, it was an expensive indulgence because there was usually a raffle somewhere every month, either for the WI, a football or cricket club, gardening club, playgroup and one or other of the churches, but never the chapels.

  Mary and I tried to socialize at these events as often as we could, our appearances being heavily dependent upon babysitters and my odd working-hours, but it did become clear that the villagers keenly supported one another’s raffles. They attended each other’s WI meetings, whist drives, dances and so on. It was very heart-warming to see them supporting one another.

  It was during these events that I came to notice that whenever a tin of sardines was won in the raffle, there was an almighty cheer from the audience. It was surely because no one really wanted to win it!

  While not wishing to show my curiosity or ignorance about it, and never wanting to appear silly by asking why everyone cheered the tin of sardines, it was then that I realized that almost every local raffle had a tin of sardines as a prize. There were one or two exceptions, usually when two events occurred simultaneously in different villages. I began to wonder about the identity of the supplier — which benefactor had all those tins to spare, I wondered? Where were they coming from? Was there something odd going on? Something that I ought to be familiar with? That sardine-cheering was a puzzle.

  Then the inevitable happened. Mary and I attended a dance in aid of church funds and, sure enough, raffle tickets were on sale. I bought some and resigned myself to the fact that I would never win. I never did — I regarded that investment as a donation to church funds.

  It is not difficult, therefore, to imagine my surprise when I found I had a winning ticket, the last one of that evening — and that my prize was a tin of sardines. As I strode forward to claim it, there was an almighty cheer. From past experience, I had expected the cheer, but as I bore the small tin triumphantly back to my seat, Mary asked,

  ‘Why did they cheer like that?’

  I told her about the custom I’d witnessed at other events but added, ‘But I don’t really know why they do it — it’s just that every time a tin of sardines is won, everybody cheers.’

  ‘There must be a reason,’ she said.

  ‘It’s like dropping a plate or a cup in a works canteen — everybody cheers when that happens!’ I told her.

  Without really inspecting the tin, I slipped it into my jacket pocket and joined the dancing. It was a pleasant evening and we enjoyed it, but as the dance was drawing to a close, the organizer, Charles Thackray, approached me.

  ‘I was glad you and Mrs Rhea could join
us socially,’ he said. ‘I hope we’ll see you again.’

  ‘We’ve enjoyed it.’ I meant every word. ‘If my duties allow, and we can find a baby-sitter, we’ll come again.’

  ‘And you’ve no more worries about what to give as the next raffle prize,’ he laughed.

  ‘The sardines?’ I realized what he was talking about and knew it was the perfect time to ask about the cheering custom. ‘Tell me, Mr Thackray, why does everyone cheer when tins of sardines are won?’

  ‘You don’t know?’ he sounded surprised.

  ‘Well, to be honest, no I don’t.’

  ‘I’ll warn you,’ he chuckled. ‘Don’t try to open that tin and don’t eat the contents!’

  I took it out of my pocket and looked at it.

  Then I realized that the design of the label was ancient — it was like those tins of sardines I’d seen when I was a child — and apart from that, the label and indeed the tin looked worn and shabby. It was an extremely old tin of extremely old sardines.

  ‘That tin’s more than thirty years old,’ he laughed. ‘It’s been going around these villages since before the war. It’s always given as a raffle prize, Mr Rhea — whoever wins it gives it back as a prize. It’s not for opening, you see, it’s for winning in raffles.’

  ‘You mean this is the same tin I’ve seen at all those raffles?’

  ‘Aye, that’s why they all cheer. So when you’re asked to give a prize next time, you give it back.’

  ‘Thanks for warning me!’ I said. ‘We might have opened it …’

  ‘You’d have had to buy a new tin,’ he said. ‘We always have a tin of sardines at all our raffles. It’s a good prize, you know, it saves you having to find a prize for the next raffle!’

  As I looked at it, I wondered how many more of those raffle prizes were never opened, being recycled in village raffles. It was less than a week later when Mrs Allen stopped me in Elsinby and asked,

  ‘It’s our WI raffle next month, Mr Rhea. I wondered if you might give a prize — I hear you’ve got the tin of sardines?’

  ‘I’ll fetch it along,’ I promised her.

  And until I left the area, that tin of sardines was still being won in local raffles.

  *

  Among the ‘entertainments’ at which raffles were held was the village whist drive, a most serious affair. Every week, on whist night, the village hall was prepared with green-baize card tables in readiness for this major social event. A supper was arranged and people from the surrounding area would arrive to compete with one another. There was immense honour in winning first prize. The prize itself, something like a brace of pheasants or a box of groceries, was secondary to the pride and honour in actually beating all-comers in this most honourable of contests. There was sometimes a First Man prize and a First Woman prize, and occasionally, if the organizer had a sense of humour, a wooden spoon for the lowest scorer. As opening time arrived, men, women and children, all gripped with the fever of winning, arrived early to ensure a good seat at their lucky starting table.

  Almost every village had its own whist drives, their popularity being legendary. The moors were rich with stories of this card game, with certain players never losing, others always winning when hearts were shinners (trumps), some being lucky at full moon or some only when there was an ‘r’ in the month.

  Stories would circulate far and wide about Awd Isaac who never had an ace in his hand but won nonetheless, of Awd Mrs Blenkin who thought spades were omens of death and always lost when she got the ace, and of Awd Jack Harrison whose winning streak lasted over five years until somebody trumped his king of diamonds with the two of clubs. He was ill for months afterwards, blaming himself for not correctly reading the other’s hand.

  Whist drives were often varied to give added spice to the proceedings. For example, there would be military whist drives in which the players formed teams which represented nations. Each team was allocated a little flag and thus nation was pitted against nation in a very serious kind of war. Another kind of whist drive was the partner drive. Two people played as a team throughout the evening and in this case one had to be very careful about the choice of one’s partner. One had to select someone with whom one had a strong rapport and someone strong enough not to become antagonistic if your abysmal playing helped to lose the game.

  With close partners, there was always a temptation to cheat but the MC was always alert for this. He’d keep his sharp eyes open for the man who’d wink the left eye if he had the ace of shinners or the right if he hadn’t a shinner in his hand. But a genuinely good whist partner had no need to cheat; a good partner was akin to a companion who was so close that the couple could almost thought-read. By the way one partner played his cards, the other could calculate which cards were held by the friend and which were held by the opposition. In this way, a tremendous amount of skill entered the game, and consequently whist, like many card games, was not classified as a lottery. It is a game of skill and chance combined, the chance being the hand of cards one is dealt, and the skill being the way in which the hand is played. The same applies to dominoes and cribbage, two very popular games, especially in pubs.

  The villages around Aidensfield, therefore, were rich in highly skilled whist players. These moorfolk, men and women alike, had played whist since childhood and knew each other’s game as if it was printing in large letters on their foreheads. So skilled were they, that they knew which cards the other would play in any given circumstance; they knew how to read the facial features, hand gestures, signs of worry like foot-tapping or nail-biting. And by memorizing the cards which had been played and the sequence in which they had fallen, they knew which cards remained to be played in any of the hands of the others at the table.

  Players of this calibre, therefore, were steeped in the game and they could not tolerate unseasoned players joining ‘their’ whist drives. This was because those unseasoned players had not competed locally over an extended period, and so the established player did not know how to ‘read’ their game.

  The result was that the strangers often won, simply because their unorthodox or amateurish style of card play completely perplexed and disorientated their more studious opponents. Many an old player has regaled a newcomer because of an awkward style of play, and so many new players refused to attend local whist drives. The aggravation, with its open criticism and rude comments, was just not worth it.

  The result was, of course, that whist drives of that kind gradually ceased to exist; as those old players went off to that ever-winning whist drive in the sky, no young people took their places.

  But schoolchildren are impervious to the niceties of adult behaviour or culture and, quite often, brash youngsters would attend these drives just for the sheer fun of annoying the hardened adult players. A rampant schoolboy with a hand full of shinners was indeed a menace, as was the quiet kid who knew how to read the game and confound his seniors by playing contrary to their own system.

  It was memories of this kind that flooded back to me when I was visited by an old school friend called Dave. He had been working as an accountant for a British company in Africa for a few years and had returned to England for a three-month break, staying with his parents. We invited him to visit us for a few days. On the second day of his visit, I walked him through Aidensfield, showing him the historic church and other interesting parts.

  We met some of the local people too, and had a lunch-time drink in the Brewers’ Arms. It was there, on the pub notice board, that he spotted the poster which announced that a partner whist drive was to be held that evening in Aidensfield village hall.

  ‘I think we ought to go.’ His eyes twinkled as he read the details. ‘Remember when we were kids, going to those partner drives and winning everything!’

  It all came back to me. Dave and I would be about fourteen at the time, both living in a tiny moorland village where the only entertainment was the snooker table and the weekly whist drive. One night, we ventured into the hall as a whist drive wa
s about to start and there happened to be two seats vacant at one of the tables. The MC spotted us and invited us to join the drive. It was a partner drive, he warned us, so we would have to play together as a team throughout the evening, but at least we did make up a full table. Thus we were regarded as useful.

  Ever ready for a bit of juvenile excitement, we joined in and we actually enjoyed it. We could play whist — we played every day on the half-hour train journey to school and so this more formal approach held no fears for us. We did not, of course, bargain for the extremely serious approach which was adopted by these regular attenders; whereas our schoolboy game was a bit of fun, this was a very solemn affair.

  But on that first occasion, we did our best; we didn’t win anything, but we were invited back if and when there was a couple of spare seats. As it happened, there was often a couple of vacant seats and so Dave and I became regular players. And we began to win. We-knew each other’s play; very quickly, we learned to ‘read’ the method of play of the others and were soon attaining high scores, winning regularly and moving from table to table to tackle fresh opponents. We did not win at every drive, but we did do extremely well. We were good whist partners.

  And so, all those years later when Dave visited me at Aidensfield on the very night of a partner drive, it seemed that this was an omen. We would attend for old time’s sake, just for a bit of fun as we had done all those years ago. To be sure we wouldn’t make complete fools of ourselves, we had some practice games at home with Mary and a dummy hand, and it was surprising how, after a dozen or so rounds, we regained most of our old skills. I found myself knowing how Dave would play … I grew quite excited about tonight’s game.

  As we left the house that night, Mary warned me not to show off, for one of my long-time interests has been card manipulation and sleight-of-hand. I knew a lot of false deals, card-sharping and vanishing tricks but had no intention of using that knowledge or my conjuring skills at the village whist drive. But I did know enough about card-sharping never to play cards for money with total strangers.