How do you return safely to your hand?

If you bid ‘em up, you had better read the cards well. This was the third consecutive six-heart contract that my wife and I bid at bridgebase. com last month. I would have opened one club with my wife’s hand, but after she passed and I bid one heart, her three-spade response showed four-plus hearts, a maximum pass and a singleton or void somewhere. My three notrump inquired. Then I used Roman Key Card Blackwood to learn that my partner had two aces and the heart queen. (Yes, it is surprising that East stayed silent.) If West had led its singleton club, I could not have made the contract. But West chose the spade six. I captured East’s 10 with my king and played a heart to dummy’s jack. East’s diamond-five discard was a blow. Now I had to lead dummy’s diamond. East won with the queen and shifted to a club. Having no choice, I played my queen. After a diamond ruff and the heart ace-queen, I had to return to my hand to draw West’s last trump. Judging that surely East would have given West a spade ruff if the opening lead had been a singleton, I crossed to my spade queen and easily took the rest of the tricks. Note that West was waiting to ruff my club ace. We were the only pair out of 16 in six hearts. There were 14 in four hearts, and the final table’s auction was bizarre. It went pass - pass - one heart - pass - two hearts(!) - three diamonds (not two no-trump, which would have shown at least 5-5 in the minors) - pass - four diamonds - all pass, making five!