Deadly Hall
Page 28
“Very well,” she said. “If it’s become a game of truth, I’ll meet frankness with frankness and tell you. Too long I have seemed a dutiful daughter or even patient Griselda, which I’m not. Next week Jeff leaves for Europe. And, it’s been decided, I leave with him. We sail by French Line ship from New York to Le Havre, then go overland to Paris.” Her soft voice rose. “In conclusion, Mr. District Attorney: if you need to ask one single question about what we’ve got in mind, you’re not the detective you’ve already proved yourself to be!”
NOTES FOR THE CURIOUS
1
APOLOGIA PRO SUA NARRATIONE
SINCE THE EVENTS in Deadly Hall occur little more than forty years ago, a time many of us well remember, it seems unnecessary to buttress them with such elaborate notes as supported two predecessors, Papa Là-Bas and The Ghosts’ High Noon. But some few explanatory words may be of interest. The book has been dedicated to my old friend Macon Fry, by profession an electrical engineer, who devised the trap at Delys Hall and gives assurance that it would work. Others deserve my gratitude as well.
2
ROLLING DOWN THE RIVER
The fictitious steamboat Bayou Queen, Grand Bayou Line, must not be taken for the actual steamboat Delta Queen, Greene Line, which now carries passengers on so many pleasant tours. Nor does Captain Joshua Galway, appearing briefly in these pages, represent the late Captain Thomas R. Greene, skilled commander and genial host, to whose vision we owe the luxurious service of the present day.
The Delta Queen was commissioned in the year 1948, over two decades after the date of the story. In October of 1948 I travelled from Cincinnati to New Orleans by this particular steamboat on what must have been one of her first journeys. It was inevitable that the real craft of ’48 should suggest the imaginary one of ’27. If any aspect of background or atmosphere has been accurately portrayed here, thanks are due to Miss Betty Blake, vice president of the Greene Line, who generously supplied information and river lore. Where I have erred through ignorance, as sometimes I must have erred, the sole culprit is your obedient servant.
3
COMMODORE HOBART’S GOLD
Those interested in lost cargoes under the sea will find many described in Fell’s Guide to Sunken Treasure Ships of the World, by Lieut. Harry E. Rieseberg and A. A. Mikalow. ‘Fell’ means Frederick Fell, Inc., original publishers of a book now everywhere available in paperback from the New American Library. A certain Dr. Fell may be forgotten.
The Spanish ships lost off the Ambrogian Reefs were (and are) real treasure ships, most of whose cargo has never been salvaged. Commodore Hobart’s diving operations would have been entirely practicable in I860, and a banker friend has estimated the value of the gold bullion this treasure-seeker is assumed to have recovered more than a century ago.
4
NEW ORLEANS, 1927
Delys Hall, apart from its iron brackets, is not unlike North Mymms Park, Hertfordshire, a photograph of which can be seen in English Country House Lite, by Ralph Nevill (London: Methuen & Co., 1925). Miss Margaret Ruckert, my valued New Orleans adviser, suggested transplanting the Hall to the River Road site of this story.
Other advisers provided local color from the nineteen-twenties. A speakeasy resembling Cinderella’s Slipper did actually exist and served only absinthe, though the private room for purposes other than drinking is a low-minded embellishment of my own. A parking lot did in fact occupy the site of the old St. Louis Hotel, where now rises a modern hotel almost as stately as the St. Louis. If the Bohemian Cigar Divan had no more reality in New Orleans than it had outside the pages of Stevenson, some such tobacconist ought to have been there. Here is the city where anything can happen, and no adventurous soul will be surprised when it does.
About the Author
John Dickson Carr (1906–1977) was one of the most popular authors of Golden Age British-style detective novels. Born in Pennsylvania and the son of a US congressman, Carr graduated from Haverford College in 1929. Soon thereafter, he moved to England where he married an Englishwoman and began his mystery-writing career. In 1948, he returned to the US as an internationally known author. Carr received the Mystery Writers of America’s highest honor, the Grand Master Award, and was one of the few Americans ever admitted into the prestigious, but almost exclusively British, Detection Club.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1971 by John Dickson Carr
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4804-7241-9
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