Many and many a night have I been called up to see or hear the spökeri (witchcraft or ghostcraft). The peasants would recount that in an upper room they had distinctly heard the spirits throwing the tin vessels and the chairs at each other — then a violent struggle between the demons, and all would be quiet.

West now plays a low club to the J and Q. North exits in a trump.

Some years later, in his Autobiography, Douglas gave a significantly different version of events: My own evidence on this point is obscured by the fact that, as I did not know of the existence of the De Profundis MS.

They both looked good – I would have been happy with either version. There was no point in making a meal of the decision, so I just picked up the one which was nearest to me on the desk and said, ‘We’ll go with this one.’