The Midnight Shuffle: A Jazz Age Solitaire Mystery

The seven of diamonds was in the wrong place.

Vivian Crane noticed it immediately, the way a musician notices a flat note in an orchestra. She stood in the back room of The Gilded Lily, Chicago’s most exclusive speakeasy, staring down at the incomplete game of Klondike solitaire spread across Marcus Webb’s mahogany desk. The club owner’s body had been removed an hour ago, but the cards remained exactly as the police had found them.

“Miss Crane, I don’t see why my brother asked you here,” said Catherine Webb, her voice tight with grief and suspicion. She clutched a beaded handbag that probably cost more than most factory workers earned in a month. “The police have already determined it was a robbery gone wrong.”

Vivian didn’t look up from the cards. “Your brother asked me because I’m the best card sharp in three states, and because Marcus was my friend.” She pulled off her kid gloves, finger by finger. “Also because this wasn’t a robbery.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“Because Marcus was playing a message, not a game.”

The Last Telephone Call

Two days earlier, Marcus Webb had telephoned Vivian at her boarding house on the South Side. His voice carried the particular tension she recognized from their days running confidence games on Michigan Avenue - before he’d gone legitimate and she’d found steadier work as a “gaming consultant” for wealthy marks who wanted to learn how not to be cheated.

“Viv, I need your eyes on something,” he’d said. “There’s a rat in my club, someone feeding information to Johnny Torrio’s outfit. I think I know who, but I need proof before I can act.”

“And you think a card player can help you catch a snitch?”

“I think the smartest person I know can help me stay alive.”

But Marcus hadn’t stayed alive. Someone had shot him in his office late Tuesday night, and the police - half of them on Torrio’s payroll anyway - had declared it a simple robbery within hours. Case closed.

Vivian didn’t believe in simple anything.

Reading the Solitaire Tableau

She studied the Klondike layout with the same intensity she’d once used to spot marked decks in high-stakes poker games. Seven tableau columns, partially built. The foundation piles had been started - ace of spades, ace of hearts, nothing else. The stock pile sat untouched, and the waste pile showed three cards: the jack of clubs, the four of hearts, and the two of diamonds.

Anyone who knew how to play Klondike solitaire would recognize this as mid-game. But anyone who knew Marcus Webb would recognize something else entirely.

“Your brother never played patience card games,” Vivian said. “Called them a waste of time when there was money to be made at real tables.”

Catherine shifted uncomfortably. “People change.”

“Not Marcus. He once told me solitaire was for people with no one interesting to talk to.” Vivian pointed at the seven of diamonds, which sat atop a black eight in the third column. “And he certainly never made mistakes like this. Red on red. Marcus would sooner forget his own name than violate the alternating color rule.”

“So he was distracted. Someone was about to kill him.”

“Or he was leaving a message for someone who would notice.” Vivian pulled a small notebook from her handbag and began recording the exact position of every card.

The Investigation

The Gilded Lily occupied the basement of what appeared to be a legitimate jazz club called The Bronze Door. Upstairs, respectable citizens danced the Charleston to a colored band from New Orleans. Downstairs, through a door hidden behind a false cigarette machine, Chicago’s elite drank Canadian whiskey and lost fortunes at roulette and blackjack.

Vivian spent the next day interviewing the staff, all of whom had been personally vetted by Marcus. There was Sal, the bartender who’d served with Marcus in the Great War. Eleanor, the cigarette girl who Marcus had hired after finding her working a badger game on State Street. And there was Thomas Ashworth, the accountant - a thin, nervous man with round spectacles and ink-stained fingers.

“Mr. Webb was alive when I left at half past ten,” Ashworth said, polishing his glasses compulsively. “He was reviewing the weekly receipts. I offered to stay, but he insisted I go home to my wife.”

“Did you see anyone else in the building?”

“Only Miss Eleanor. She was restocking the cigarette case near the hidden entrance.”

Vivian made a note. “And the cards on his desk? The solitaire game?”

Ashworth blinked. “I… I didn’t notice any cards. But then, I wasn’t looking at his desk.”

The Hidden Code in the Card Game

That night, Vivian sat in her rented room with the card positions copied onto paper, a cup of cold coffee beside her, and a growing certainty that Marcus had died trying to tell her something.

The name Klondike itself was a clue - the game was named for the gold rush region where prospectors had sought their fortunes in frozen wilderness. Marcus had always appreciated that connection. “We’re all prospectors, Viv,” he’d once said. “Looking for gold in a world that mostly offers fool’s pyrite.”

She stared at the layout. Seven columns. The seven of diamonds misplaced. Red on red - wrong - in the third position.

Seven. Three. Seventy-three.

Vivian sat up straighter. Marcus had owned a safe deposit box at First National. Box seventy-three.

The ace of spades in the foundation. The ace of hearts. S and H. She looked at the waste pile - jack, four, two. J-D-B in card notation, but the suits… clubs, hearts, diamonds. C-H-D.

Her hands trembled as she rearranged the letters. S-H-C-H-D. No, that wasn’t right. She was thinking too literally.

The foundation showed only two aces - the starting cards. What cards were missing from the foundation that should have been played? The ace of diamonds and ace of clubs were still in the tableau. A-D and A-C.

She grabbed her notebook. The misplaced seven of diamonds. The visible cards spelling out a sequence. Marcus had used their old code, the one they’d developed for communicating across crowded card rooms.

ASHWORTH. The cards spelled ASHWORTH.

The Confrontation

Vivian found Catherine Webb the next morning at the Palmer House, where the grieving sister had taken a suite. She laid out the cards on the sitting room table, recreating her brother’s final game.

“Marcus knew his killer,” Vivian said. “He knew and he left a message. The alternating colors in Klondike aren’t just rules - they’re a language if you know how to read them.”

“Thomas Ashworth?” Catherine’s face paled. “But he’s been with Marcus for years.”

“Long enough to learn every shipment, every payment, every protection arrangement. Long enough to sell that information to Torrio’s people.” Vivian tapped the misplaced seven. “Your brother broke the rules of the game to show us the accountant broke the rules of loyalty.”

“But the police will never accept this. A card game as evidence?”

Vivian smiled, and there was nothing warm in it. “That’s why we’re going to check box seventy-three at First National. I suspect Marcus kept more conventional proof there - ledgers, perhaps, or intercepted communications. The solitaire layout was just his way of telling me where to look.”

The safe deposit box contained exactly what Vivian had predicted: a leather journal documenting six months of Ashworth’s betrayals, complete with dates, amounts, and the names of Torrio’s intermediaries. It also contained a sealed envelope addressed to Vivian.

If you’re reading this, I wasn’t fast enough. Thank you for being clever enough. Buy yourself something nice with the enclosed. You’ve earned it. - M

Inside was a thousand dollars and a brand new deck of Bicycle playing cards.

Justice Served Through Patience

Thomas Ashworth was arrested two days later, not for murder - the evidence was too circumstantial for that - but for racketeering and conspiracy charges that would keep him in Joliet Prison for the next fifteen years. Johnny Torrio’s organization never recovered from the exposure of their information network, and within a year, a young man named Capone had taken over the outfit entirely.

Vivian Crane returned to her consulting work, though she found herself playing more solitaire than she once had. There was something meditative about this patience game, she discovered - the way the playing cards fell, the patterns that emerged, the satisfaction of building something orderly from chaos.

Sometimes, late at night, she’d deal out a game of Klondike and deliberately place a red card on red, just to remember her friend and the message he’d trusted her to decode.

The cards always told a story, if you knew how to listen.

Ready to Play Klondike Solitaire?

Marcus Webb may have used this classic card game to catch a killer, but you can enjoy Klondike solitaire simply for the timeless pleasure of the game. Whether you’re looking for a few minutes of peaceful play or want to sharpen your strategic thinking, there’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of building those foundation piles from ace to king.

Play Klondike solitaire and deal your own hand. No mysteries required - just the quiet joy of cards falling into place.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was solitaire popular during the 1920s Jazz Age?

Absolutely. Patience games, as solitaire was often called, had been popular since the early 1800s and remained a common pastime throughout the Roaring Twenties. Before radio entertainment became widespread, card games of all types - including solo games - were standard leisure activities for all social classes.

Is Klondike really named after the Gold Rush?

Yes! The game likely got its name during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-1899, when prospectors in the Yukon Territory played it to pass time in their camps. You can learn more about the fascinating history in our article on why it’s called Klondike.

Could someone really communicate through a solitaire game?

While Vivian’s code-breaking is fictional, card games have genuinely been used for secret communication throughout history. During World War II, specially manufactured decks of cards were sent to prisoners of war with hidden maps that could be revealed when the cards were soaked in water. The ordered nature of card games makes them surprisingly effective for encoding information.

What are the basic rules of Klondike solitaire?

Klondike is played with a standard 52-card deck. You build seven tableau columns, alternating colors in descending order, while moving aces to foundation piles and building them up by suit to kings. For a complete guide, check out our article on how to play Klondike solitaire.

Were speakeasies really hidden behind fake businesses?

Yes, and they used remarkably creative concealment methods. Speakeasies during Prohibition (1920-1933) were hidden behind bookshops, funeral parlors, barbershops, and yes, even cigarette machines with false backs. The Gilded Lily in this story is fictional, but it’s based on real establishments that operated in Chicago during the era.