The Ghosts' High Noon

by John Dickson Carr

  And once more, after a grateful and deeply sincere goodbye, he left that office with head high and heart singing. His theory about Jill had been right after all; in very short order, probably even this morning, he should be able to prove it. He had taken another long step towards truth.

  13

  COULD SOMEBODY BE FOLLOWING him now?

  It was not quite eleven o’clock. Having retrieved the car from Guilfoyle’s Garage, Jim headed east along Chartres Street. In the dingy, greasy garage Stu Guilfoyle, who obviously knew nothing of last night’s events, had been his customary amiable self.

  “Didn’t have no trouble with her, did you, Mr. Blake? I’ve given her a goin’-over this morning; she’s in tip-top shape. But you ain’t got your dust-coat on!”

  “No, no trouble at all. I’m not wearing the coat because this morning I intend to stay within well-paved limits; the goggles are here in my pocket. Before I take the car out, though, may I use your telephone?”

  “Sure thing. This way.”

  Stu led him to the cramped cubicle of an office, whose window looked out across an overgrown back yard. A calendar on the wall depicted some fashionable young lady ecstatically holding up a bottle of Coca-Cola with a straw in it. Jim sat down at the phone on the desk underneath and asked for Main 0101. While the ringing-tone sounded distantly, he picked up a pencil and drew squiggles on a pad.

  He was answered, as he expected to be, by Miss Florence Yates’s maid. A short parley brought Miss Yates herself.

  “It’s a little early to be disturbing you,” Jim told her. “But several important matters have come up since I saw you last…”

  “So I’ve been told.” The voice betrayed nothing. “Yes, Mr. Blake?”

  “And one or two points need to be cleared up. Would it be too much if I asked to come and see you now?”

  “You’re always welcome here, my dear sir, and I think you know it! Where are you?”

  “At a garage in Chartres Street. With luck I could be there in fifteen minutes or less, if that’s convenient?”

  “Yes, indeed; it’s entirely convenient. Do come along as soon as you can!”

  Jim hung up the receiver and went to the front of the garage. At the curb outside, facing in the direction of Canal Street, was another almost brand-new five-seater Cadillac, this one bright yellow, with its top up. Beside it, in frock coat and top hat, stood an urbane, silver-haired man with a mobile mouth and a hooded eye. Stu Guilfoyle was addressing him with gusto.

  “There’s not a thing wrong with her, Mr. Chadwick! Just don’t take your foot off the clutch too soon; then she won’t stall. That self-starter’s a dream, ain’t it?”

  He turned towards Jim, and became uproariously amused. “Here, this is good! Mr. Chadwick, meet Mr. Blake from New York. Mr. Blake, Mr. Chadwick. It’d be real funny, wouldn’t it, if Mr. Blake in a Chadwick ran smack into Mr. Chadwick in a Cadillac?”

  “I sincerely hope he won’t,” said the silver-haired man. “I’m too old a dog, Stu, to learn the tricks of the young. But you’re right about one thing. With a self-starter, you see, my wife and daughter can take over duties that the head of the family shies at. We’ll have ladies driving every car in sight before long, don’t you think?”

  This must be the Raymond P. Chadwick of whom Jim had heard. He made no comment on Jim’s name; perhaps he had scarcely heard it. His was the ease of a trained politician, who would have shown the utmost cordiality if he had been introduced to a two-headed dragon.

  “So I think I’m safe enough,” he added. “However, just in case the gentleman should feel impelled to run over Mr. Chadwick in a Chadwick, I’ll climb in and be off.”

  A touch of his foot on a button brought the engine to life. With something of a jerk, but steadily enough after the first few yards, he rolled away towards Canal Street.

  After Stu had obligingly cranked up for him, Jim turned in the opposite direction. That was where he began to have the impression that eyes were upon him, and that somebody followed.

  It was only an impression, probably illusory. In fact, so far as he could see, nothing followed him except one of the ubiquitous carriages for sightseers, and this soon turned off. He made good time to Esplanade Avenue. A few minutes past eleven found him ringing the bell at the home of Miss Yates.

  Admitted by the graceful maid, he was again ushered into the drawing-room on the right. Miss Yates, in a green morning-gown, sat beside one of the front windows with a book in her hand. Though no less soignée than yesterday, she seemed even more haggard when she rose and bowed.

  “Your servant, Mr. Blake! If you have further questions for me, may we dispense with formalities and get to the point at once?”

  “Of course, if you wish it. I believe you said, Miss Yates, that twice last week, the notorious Yvonne Brissard called on General and Mrs. Clayton across the street?”

  “God save us! Did you come all the way to my humble abode merely to ask that?”

  “No, madam. There are other matters. You see—”

  “How many times must I assure you,” cried Miss Yates, “that according to my lights I am a thoroughly honest woman? The suicide of our unfortunate friend Leo…”

  “Was it suicide or murder, madam? The police seem to think it was murder, and they have good reason.”

  “It was suicide, I tell you!”

  “In either event, Miss Yates, the news has not yet appeared in the press. May I ask how you learned it?”

  “A source called the grapevine, Mr. Blake, makes any sensational event common knowledge in a very short time. Can you question that statement?”

  “Not as a general statement, though I may question other statements of yours. You have just referred to our ‘unfortunate friend Leo.’ Were you in fact his fairly close friend?”

  “I was. Did he himself not tell you so?”

  “He let it be understood. You said yesterday, however, you had telephoned Leo to verify my bona fides. I myself could not reach you by phone until one-thirty in the afternoon. At what time did you get in touch with him?”

  “To find the poor fellow in so suicidal a mood? As I have good reason for remembering, it was at ten minutes after two.”

  “No, madam. Leo had left home before two o’clock. The police have a full list of phone calls he made or received before he went out. Unless you were the man’s voice which seems to have threatened him half an hour after noon, a proposition I take the liberty of doubting, you could not have spoken to him even then; you could not have spoken to him at all.”

  Miss Yates threw up her hands.

  “If we must pursue what now amounts to an inquisition, don’t stand there fidgeting and looking tortured! There’s a chair just opposite me, by the right-hand window. Sit down, please; let’s pursue my sins, or Leo’s sins, with some decent appearance of being civilized!”

  “Were they Leo’s sins, madam?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She had sat down. Jim did not immediately follow suit.

  “Comparing certain remarks of yours with certain things Leo had said in the course of a lengthy phone call,” he continued, “I felt sure yesterday there must be something wrong in the situation as it was presented to me.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “Something false, then. He conveyed the impression, without actually stating it, that he knew so much about you because he himself had employed the service you provide: Sue, Billie Jean, or perhaps some predecessor of theirs. And yet he seemed to think your nieces performed in this house, and added that you must either be running a grave risk or paying heavy bribes to operate on the sacred Esplanade.”

  “But I—!”

  “Yes, Miss Yates. You made very clear, almost from the start, you would never so jeopardize the position you hope to attain. And yet Leo did not seem to know this. He made no mention of that snug Basin Street apartment, safe beyond touch of the law, as assuredly he must have done if he had ever heard of it.”

  “What are you sug
gesting now?”

  “I am suggesting, Miss Yates, that Leo never did try me joys of the pubescent, even to satisfy curiosity about what it would be like. In short, madam, he was speaking from hearsay; and he made a mistake.”

  Here Jim did sit down to face her. But his tone did not change.

  “On the other hand,” he pursued, fixing his companion with a mesmeric eye, “you said you knew I would call on you; you said you knew it even before I telephoned. And I don’t doubt that: every word and gesture indicated you were expecting me. You didn’t communicate with Leo; you couldn’t have communicated with Leo. But somebody did ring you and tell you to welcome Jim Blake. Have you realized, madam, that this ‘somebody’ is in all probability the murderer for whom the police are looking?”

  The woman was galvanized.

  “Murderer?” she echoed. “You’re mad! You’re stark mad! He would never have—” She checked herself and stood up. “To demonstrate, sir, that for me most part I have been telling you sober truth, may we revert to the question you asked when you first burst in? It is about Miss Yvonne Brissard.”

  “Yes?”

  “On the continent of Europe, where they manage these things better, a grande amoureuse will be accepted and even honored by some of the best people. If Miss Brissard has begun to teach us such civilized habits here, more power to her!” Florence Yates, deeply moved, threw open the lace curtains on the left-hand window. “Look out there, Mr. Blake! Look at the house opposite!”

  Jim joined her and peered out.

  The house across the avenue, brick faced in pale gray stucco, was of a sort often seen in the Vieux Carré Its ground or parlor floor had been built up some dozen feet above street-level. The wings of a curving stone stairway with lacework iron balustrade ascended on either side to meet at a white front door between pillars. Sunlight gleamed on its brass knocker.

  “General and Mrs. Clayton,” Miss Yates reported, “have gone for their customary morning drive; the ogre is absent. Yesterday, Mr. Blake, you seemed to entertain some doubts that Mademoiselle Brissard could be on visiting terms with the Claytons. She has attained more than visiting terms; she makes herself at home. She is there now!”

  “I see no carriage waiting.”

  “She came in a cab, no doubt. Certainly the other woman did; I saw her.”

  “What other woman?”

  “Miss Brissard’s social secretary. When they hear that our grande amoureuse employs a social secretary, so many obtuse people are inclined to snicker or make ribald jokes. I don’t snicker, sir; least of all do I make jokes. More power to her, say I!”

  “This social secretary: you’re sure that’s who it is? And they’re both in the house now?”

  “I am sure of her identity, though I never heard her name. I saw them both when Miss Brissard was staying at the Grunewald Hotel before she rented her present villa.”

  The whole emotional temperature of this interview had altered in a matter of seconds. Jim all but seized his companion’s arm.

  “What’s she like, the secretary? Will you describe her, please?”

  “Unlike her employer, the secretary is smallish and fair-haired. But she is very pretty, and has a beautiful figure. All the men would be after her, I am sure, except that she’s so self-effacing one scarcely observes her.

  “Let it be repeated that the ogre is absent on his morning drive. Mrs. Clayton, who must be years younger than her husband and has a somewhat theatrical presence for so obvious a grande dame, is absent, too. Helena, one of the Claytons’ maids, is a great friend of Essie, my maid. Not long ago Helena, knowing our interest in these things, ran across the street to tell Essie that Miss Brissard and her secretary have made themselves very comfortable in the back parlor. Should you still entertain any doubt of this…?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is the matter so important to you, Mr. Blake? Very well. On either side of the house, you will note, there is a wall fronting the banquette, with an open gateway against the house on both sides. If you were to cross the street, enter by one of those gates, and go to the back of the premises, you would find outside stairs leading to a gallery across the parlor floor. You need not disturb anyone or so much as betray your presence. One glance through a window would assure you I speak the simple truth. If the matter is so important…”

  All Jim’s earlier excitement had returned in a rush.

  “The matter’s important, all right, and that’s just what I’ll do. It’s time we cleared up one utterly senseless masquerade.”

  “Shall I ring for Essie to fetch your hat?”

  “No hat will be needed for the errand I have in mind. But I beg, madam, you won’t stir from where you are or lock your front door against my return. There are other things of greater weight than my own emotions.”

  Having said this with as much coolness as he could muster, Jim almost plunged out into the hall. Though he had also said he did not need his hat, he saw it on a table in the hall and took it with him when he descended into the street.

  The sun, hitherto so much in evidence, had gone behind a cloud after the fashion of New Orleans weather. A grocer’s delivery wagon rattled past, its driver whistling; nothing else seemed astir in Esplanade Avenue.

  Jim crossed the street, and at the right-hand side of the house entered the arched gateway in a stucco-faced wall twice the height of a man’s head. A brick-flagged walk led him along the south side of a spacious and well-kept garden. A similar brick-flagged path along the north side joined this one where both turned at the back of the house, and became one broader path to coach-house-cum-stable giving on an alley at the extreme rear.

  There was the iron gallery along the back of the house, with iron stairs leading up. Slowing his rush, Jim mounted the steps. Beyond the first window through which he looked, which could only have been that of the back parlor Miss Yates had mentioned, he found what he sought.

  In a room with two windows, a room richly furnished after the style of post-bellum days before he had been born, two women sat with their backs almost turned. They sat at a table bearing silver coffee-service and Wedgwood china cups.

  The woman on the left was Jill, in tailored costume and small straw hat. The woman on the right, slim and lissome, wore a morning-gown of vivid yellow. She might have been in her early or middle thirties. Since she had her profile slightly inclined towards Jill, Jim could see the very tiny mole just above the outer corner of the left eyebrow.

  So many emotions boiled up in him that he could not have analyzed them even if he had wanted to. He stood for a moment looking from one woman to the other. Then he quietly descended the steps, and went back by way of the path into the street.

  Along Esplanade Avenue, approaching from the south, loomed up a familiar thick-set, derby-hatted figure on a Ranger bicycle. Lieutenant Trowbridge, his moustache a-bristle, swung in at the curb, dismounted, and propped the machine upright on its metal stand.

  “Well, Franz Josef?” he said with broad heartiness. “Discovered anything else this morning?”

  “Yes. Have you been following me?”

  “Not what you’d call following, no. They said you’d left the newspaper office, but didn’t know where you’d gone. I sort of thought you might get the car out, and you had. You used the phone, too, Stu Guilfoyle told me. On a pad beside it somebody’d scribbled ‘Main 0101.’”

  “I was only making aimless marks, I thought.”

  “Wasn’t so very aimless, Franz Josef. Didn’t take long to learn who that number belonged to, either!” Lieutenant Trowbridge glanced across the street. “Yes, there’s your car outside Flossie Yates’s. All right! If you were asking Flossie about her stable of under-age ones, or anything else that’s occurred to you, what are you doing over here? This is General Clayton’s, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but the general’s not in. I think Miss Yates could tell us a good deal, though it may not be easy to make her speak. And another point has come up. Listen, Lieutenant! Suppose you learn something
which may be revealing or even startling on its own, but which won’t help much in solving the problem on both our minds. Could you keep it strictly to yourself?”

  “Try me, that’s all. Just try me!”

  “I’ll go even further. Would you keep it to yourself, and not make things more awkward than necessary for several persons concerned?”

  “Yes, I can promise that. I want to know who killed Leo Shepley and how it was done. Anything else don’t matter two hoots in hell!”

  “Wait here, will you? I’m going up and hammer at the front door. If they admit me, I’ll soon stick my head out and invite you to join the party.”

  “What’s the game, Franz Josef?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Now that they had reached at least a minor disclosure which to Jim was a major disclosure, he must keep tight hold on nervous tensions so that his voice would remain coherent. He ran up the steps and plied the brass knocker. A Negro maid in the regulation uniform of cap and apron opened the door on a lofty, tapestry-hung hall at whose rear a partly open door must lead to the back parlor Jim had already seen.

  “Yessuh?” the maid began nervously. “If it’s for the general…”

  “It’s not for the general.” Jim made his voice carry. “May I speak to Miss Jill Matthews, please?”

  The maid retreated two steps. From the direction of the back parlor a woman’s voice, not Jill’s voice but one he had heard before, said, “Surely that’s—!” and stopped abruptly.

  Inside the parlor there seemed to be a kind of scurry. Then Jill herself, hand shading her eyes, appeared in its doorway. Lovely to look at, infinitely desirable despite a face pink with confusion, she hovered there as though poised for instant flight.

  “Better come out, Jill,” he called. “You might ask her to come out, too. The masquerade’s over now, as it ought to be over.”

  “Yes, it’s over,” Jill blurted. “And thank God it’s over! I’ve been arguing since Wednesday, though up to this morning I couldn’t make her agree to anything at all!” Then Jill’s defenses dropped. “But however on earth did you guess?”