Squeezed out of an Ace

5
A 7 2
J 8
K Q J 8 7 5 3
Q 6 3 J 9 8 7 4 2
Q J 8 5 3 10 6
9 7 6 4 2
A 10 6 2 4
A K 10
K 9 4
A K Q 10 5 3
9 Contract: 6 no trump
Making 7? This hand was originally entered under Squeezes (Number 31). But by chance, while I was fixin' to enter the preceding example here, I came across this hand, which offered a squeeze, sure enough, but it was really a case of Fourth Hand Failure. The squeeze emanated from that, but it took that foolish duck to establish the squeeze.
Declarer won the opening spade lead, third hand going high, led the 9 of clubs to the K, holding, following this with the Q, which also held! From that point, declarer cashed his second spade, ran all is diamonds, then entered dummy with the A of hearts. The hand then looked like this:

------
7
------
J
------ J 9
Q J (?) ------
------ ------
A (?) ------
------
K 9
------
------

And of course West cannot hold 3 cards when everyone else has two, and will have given up the ghost either in by getting down to a singleton heart, or by jettisoning the A of clubs.
West was certainly right to duck the club lead, second hand, and just as certainly wrong to duck the club honor from dummy fourth hand. He can see that going up on a low lead to those clubs in dummy would simply hand over the club suit to declarer. We can see that it makes no difference and that declarer can live with just two club winners, but West cannot know that and should want to give declarer as much trouble as possible. But there isn't a ghost of a reason for ducking that club honor from dummy. West is only going to get one card with that ace, and declarer would be unable to pick up or finesse past his ten at that point. He's done his job in ducking a low club and now must do his job to take an honor offered to him.
The important point here is to recognize that there is a common thread between ducking second hand and winning fourth hand, and that is to get something with that Ace. But by failing to do so, West never did get his Ace.