Otvorenih karata

After dinner, the guests split into two rooms and play bridge (contract bridge). The detectives play in one room, and the suspects in the other – where Shaitana sits by the fireplace and watches them. At the end of the evening, Shaitana is found dead – stabbed with his own stiletto from his collection, and the murder occurred while everyone was in the room playing bridge. No one came out, no one saw anything suspicious – a classic “locked room” with four suspects and four top investigators. The key to the novel – according to Christie herself in the preface: the solution does not depend on physical clues or alibis, but on the psychology of the suspects. Each of them has a past with murder (different methods, different motives), and Poirot and the team must reconstruct old crimes in order to solve the new one. The bridge games serve as a metaphor and a reminder of the “open cards” – characters and secrets are gradually revealed. The novel was praised for its original premise (four detectives against four murderers), tension without violence, and deep characterization – one of Christie's "purest" and most intellectual classics.