A question about Bridge. I read a murder mystery in which some people were playing Bridge and one of them?

Question

was the "dummy" and he wandered away and was doing other stuff while the non dummies were playing. Why was he the dummy? Was he being punished for doing something dumb? Or had he already lost and couldn't play any more. Or did they only need three players. In which case why are people always looking for a fourth for bridge?

Answer 1

It means that person's partner won the auction, so that person (the dummy) has to display their cards on the table, and doesn't need to do anything else.

For a detailed explanation of bridge rules, see this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_bridge

Answer 2

Bridge is composed of two parts:

1. The bidding: Players "bid" as to how many tricks they can make, with their best fit in one of the four suits: spades, hearts, diamonds or clubs; or No-Trump (no suit is trump).

2. Playing out the Contract: Once one of the two sides has won the bidding, they have to try to win the game by succeding in making the number of tricks bid, or playing out the "contract."

The opponent to the right of the player opposite to the player who had first stated the contract suit (or no-trump) in the bidding places a card down (or "leads"), and then the nxt player exposes his entire hand. This player is called the "Dummy" because he no longer has any choice, concercing playing his hand; his partner will do all the work now.

Thus, the dummy is free to walk around and grab coffee, donuts, et al.