The Ghosts' High Noon

by John Dickson Carr

  “It’s tragic irony,” Jim agreed, “though we’ll not dwell too much on that aspect. Apart from Leo, then, these three elderly aristocrats were the only New Orleanians who knew your real identity?”

  “Yes, except for the bank. The manager of the Planters’ & Southern had to know, or I couldn’t have got funds through from London. But the second great virtue of bankers, always putting honesty first, is that they don’t talk.”

  “One last question, and I will pester you no more. At the beginning of this imposture, I take it, there was no intention of hoaxing Clay Blake?”

  Constance recoiled.

  “Good heavens, Jim! As I’ve tried so hard to tell you, there was never an intention of hoaxing anybody! It was to give me peace and quiet, which blessedly I’ve had, so I could get on and finish my book. The only part was being a Creole and speaking French when I had to. They tell me I speak pretty fair French. Anyway, I once played La Dame aux Camellias in Paris; and the notices—I can show you my scrapbook—were positively lyrical. But I haven’t been troubled with much French. If anybody ever did fire an incomprehensible sentence I could always draw myself up like this and say”—momentarily a very slight accent tinged her voice—”‘We are in America, where I was born; please to speak English, if you will.’ There was nothing else to it. That I should meet darling Clay, with predictable results, was only what I like to call his destiny and mine. You can’t find a hoax there, can you?”

  “No, but that’s what Leo was afraid of.”

  “Afraid of?”

  “When the whole truth came out. Even if I hadn’t interfered, you couldn’t have kept up the imposture much longer, could you?”

  “That’s what I’ve kept telling her,” Jill insisted. “But do you think she’d listen?”

  Jim leaned forward, fixing the taller woman with his eye.

  “Sooner or later, you know, you’d have had to admit you were Constance Lambert. And then what would have been everybody’s verdict? That it had been another practical joke, engineered by Leo Shepley and directed at Clay Blake, one of Leo’s close friends.

  “It’s now much clearer.” He glanced at Jill. “What a load of trouble Leo carried when we were on that train. He was worried about a political plot against Clay, yes. He was also worried about what so many people would think was his plot, to embarrass and discomfit the very man he was supporting. In the old days, when he did go hog-wild with a practical joke, his conscience wouldn’t let him rest until he’d put matters right with the victim. And it explains something he said to his aunt on Wednesday morning. ‘I’ve got no reputation to lose. But, by God, Aunt Harriet, I won’t lose my friends!’”

  “You’re all looking at me,” cried Constance, “as though I were the villain of the piece, or at least a wickedly designing woman! Is that what you’re thinking, Lieutenant Trowbridge?”

  “No, ma’am, you’re all wrong there,” grunted Lieutenant Trowbridge, regarding her with the utmost respect. “All the same, though! If a mere cop could butt in and ask you something, too…”

  “You know, Mr. Trowbridge, you’re not a bit like any American detective I ever heard of or read about. Please feel free to ask anything at all!”

  “It’s a little bit personal, ma’am!”

  “I live in public, don’t I? Can anything be too personal? Ask away!”

  “All right, ma’am, if you insist.” After staring at the floor for a moment, he looked up suddenly. “Here you are, a fine actress and a real lady. What did your swell friends think—old Mrs. Laird, the general and his wife—what did they think when you played the high-priced fancy woman and flaunted yourself as one in front of the whole town?”

  “When have I ever flaunted myself, Mr. Trowbridge?”

  “You haven’t, ma’am! It’s just what you wanted to avoid, and I can see that as well as anybody. But you started ’em talking; you wanted ’em to talk; you’ve known what they said. What did your swell friends think? If it comes to that, what did you think? Haven’t you felt just a little bit degraded, sort of?”

  “My swell friends, as you call them, have been far less shocked than you credit them with being. In their hearts I know they’ve enjoyed it. Certainly I’ve enjoyed it.”

  “Ma’am, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “I am saying it with all possible clarity. The part I played was that of a grande amoureuse, not a common street-walker. If you don’t appreciate the difference, ask any woman who’ll give you an honest answer. What each of us wants, unco’ guid or the reverse, is universal tribute to our powers of fascination. The great courtesan has that; she can walk proudly because she has it, in full consciousness of admiration and envy. And my own private reputation, Lieutenant, is not so spotless that I can cry, ‘Fie!’ or pretend to unco’ guidness when I am having an affair with some personable male.”

  “But Mr. Clay Blake…”

  “With Clay, of course, it’s been a very different matter. Old Mrs. Laird knows, the general’s wife knows, I fell deeply and sincerely for Clay as soon as I met him. It’s a different thing; it’s the real thing. Do you believe that?”

  “If you say so, ma’am, I believe it.”

  “And in all this lofty talk about virtue—damn virtue!—we seem to be forgetting why I played the part. Clay’s company, after all, was the only company I wanted while I tried to finish that book.”

  “Ah, now we’re on safer ground! Did you finish the book?”

  “All but the last chapter, which will bring events up to date. There have been a few difficulties with it, though.”

  “How, ma’am?”

  “As soon as I finish a chapter, Jill types it and tidies up the spelling wherever necessary. But, when I’ve wanted to write to Mr. Alden in New York, I’ve had to send the letter to London, where my agent has the envelope retyped and posted there. I’m not supposed to be in this country, you know.”

  “We know, Miss Lambert. Well?”

  Hands clasped together, body tense in the yellow dress, Constance again seemed to peer out of a dream.

  “Towards the end of September, when I’d finished that next-to-the-last chapter, I was jubilant! I said to Jill, ‘Since it’s all finished bar the conclusion, here’s what we’ll do!’ So I wrote to Mr. Alden, saying I was sending my secretary to New York with the manuscript complete except for its final chapter. The letter, I calculated by studying the calendar, would go to London, be reposted, and should reach Mr. Alden early during the week that began Monday, October 7th.

  “We studied shipping-lists as well as the calendar. The liner Olympic from Southampton was due in New York on Friday, the 11th. Jill would take the train here late Wednesday afternoon and be in New York that same Friday morning. Saying she’d arrived by the Olympic, she’d deliver the manuscript to Mr. Alden and camp on his doorstep until she learned what he thought. I felt there were some very good things in it, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Well! Having decided that, I said, ‘Oh, if only I could go into complete seclusion for a week or ten days, not even seeking the man I dote on, while I finished that tricky last chapter!’ I thought of going away, but where could I go?

  “On the Sunday before Jill was to leave, I was out driving in my carriage. Beyond the Villa de Jarnac there’s a long stretch of the road without another house in sight. General Clayton and his wife passed me in their carriage, going in the same direction. Mrs. Clayton signalled me to stop, and we both pulled up.

  “In rather an emotional way, I’m afraid—I am temperamental sometimes; I admit it—I poured out what was on my mind. Mrs. Clayton said, ‘Why leave New Orleans at all? Why not come and stay with us? There’s a room you’ll find very comfortable to write in, and we’d love to have you.’ The general said, ‘Yes, do that! We can stable your horses and carriage; bring ’em along. You may be working all day, but you’ll want a breath of air in the afternoon or the evening.’”

  “The whole bunch of you were conspirators, eh?” demanded Lieutenant Tr
owbridge.

  “Yes, I’m afraid that’s it. Mrs. Clayton said, ‘Tell everybody you’re going away, if you like. We have some friends in Mobile, Alabama, who’ll back it up if you say you were with them.’ I said, ‘Yes, but you know the appalling character I’m supposed to be. Somebody thereabouts is bound to catch sight of me; what will the neighbors think?’ The general said, ‘We are too old, young lady, to give one whistling damn’—yes, he really did say ‘one whistling damn’ in just those words—‘what anybody thinks.’”

  “So you never did leave New Orleans, ma’am?”

  “No, I never did. I was glad I’d decided to come here; on Sunday night Clay told me he was leaving for New York and a political do. So I couldn’t have seen him anyway, that week, and he wouldn’t run into Jill when she left on Wednesday.”

  “Well, what about it? Have you finished the book?”

  “No, not yet. I couldn’t seem to work for thinking about Clay. But I’d told Jill to phone me here every day and report. And she did. She phoned from New York Friday to say she’d delivered the manuscript to Mr. Alden, and he’d promised to read it over the weekend. There was no occasion for a call until Monday, so that could be cancelled.

  “But early Monday afternoon, before she took the train home, she did ring up with the most glorious news.”

  “‘Glorious’ news, ma’am?”

  “Mr. Alden loved the book! He doesn’t even want anything changed: which editors do, usually, I’m told. I’d put in a lot of colorful stories. In my earlier days I did soubrettes for Henry Irving when Irving had lost control of the Lyceum but still played there. Any anecdote about Irving always goes down well. There was the time Bram Stoker wanted to wipe the floor with Bernard Shaw, and very nearly did. Poor Bram, who died only this year, was once a champion athlete at Trinity College, Dublin. He’d have slaughtered that sarcastic devil with the red beard; I wish he had. But I never expected my book to be greeted with a kind of ecstasy.

  “All the same, though, Jill seemed worried. She told me how she’d met her Mr. Blake—you, Jim—and she had a kind of apprehension the story you were after might be a story about Constance Lambert in disguise.”

  “Really, Connie,” exclaimed Jill, “haven’t I explained that already? All Jim wanted, in fact, was a personality piece on your cherished Clay; you know that now; I’ve told you often enough. Still! If I wanted to claim credit for having premonitions, couldn’t I cite that one as accurate?”

  “You worry too much, dear.” Then Constance addressed the others. “On the phone Monday I told her she worried too much. I told her to take the train and forget it. When she landed back in New Orleans, we couldn’t inflict Jill as well as me on the general and his wife. If she ran into some contretemps or any situation she couldn’t handle, I said, she was to put up at the Grunewald Hotel, where we both stayed when we first arrived. She was to phone me here, and in a day or two we’d both return to the Villa de Jarnac as though we were returning from Alabama. That’s where we’re going this afternoon.

  “There have been some ticklish moments, I know, especially for Jill. But it’s worked out just as it should; I flatter myself I planned rather well. This morning I phoned Clay at his office, to tell him I was back in town and invite him to dinner this evening. When he asked me to marry him…”

  Lieutenant Trowbridge rose up from his chair as though lifted by a sort of slow explosion.

  “He asked you to marry him? Still thinking you were Yvonne Brissard?”

  “Yes!”

  “And on the telephone?”

  “Yes! Forgive me, Lieutenant; I was too overpoweringly happy to do anything except say yes. Whatever Clay may think, at least he thinks enough of me to give—as the general would put it—not one whistling damn what anybody else thinks. Isn’t that glorious? Jill’s been at me and at me to tell Clay the truth, even if I kept it secret from others. Tonight I can tell him with a clear conscience. And all our troubles will be over.”

  Jill strode forward and faced her sister.

  “You’ve planned so very well, have you? You’ve thought of everything? And all our troubles will be over?”

  “Yes, dear, I think so.”

  “Our real troubles, Connie, haven’t even begun. You don’t see, do you, that we’re both standing on the edge of a volcano? And that it’s going to blow up underneath us at any minute?”

  15

  “VOLCANO? BLOW UP UNDERNEATH us? Jill what are you babbling about?”

  “I am not babbling, Connie.”

  “Then will you kindly explain yourself?”

  “I’ll fry.”

  The sisters, so very unlike, yet with a certain family resemblance which seemed of the spirit rather than the flesh, made a contrast as they stood outlined in profile against the right-hand window.

  Tall Constance, outwardly the more fiery, had charm and attractiveness; but, to one observer at least, she had no more than that. It was Jill, smaller and more rounded, who possessed a sheer allure which unsteadied him: the white-and-pink complexion beneath dark-gold hair, the glance of eyes that could be soft or stubborn, the sense of enormous vitality repressed under that gentle exterior.

  Jill looked up at her sister.

  “I think you’ll agree, Connie, I’ve rallied round and supported you in everything. Most of it’s not been easy. When I’ve been introduced as your social secretary, or when anybody’s bothered to notice me at all, I can almost see the snicker they just manage to hide. I can almost hear what they’re thinking. ‘Social secretary, eh? Does she make note of an appointment every time the lady of the house goes to bed with her lover?’”

  “Jill!” cried Constance, genuinely shocked.

  “You keep telling me to be honest, Connie. Very well; I’ll try to prove I can be just as honest as you think you are. You may have had a heavenly time playing Yvonne Brissard, and say you don’t mind being taken for a harlot so long as the harlot’s been successful. I minded, thanks very much; I still mind. I begged you to tell Clay the truth. But hasn’t it ever occurred to you, as Jim was remarking a while ago, that sooner or later the whole story must come out and be splashed in the press? And the rather awful consequences when that does happen? It hasn’t occurred to you, has it?”

  “Oh, it’s occurred to me, dear. And I know how to deal with it when it does.”

  “Do you really? You’re news, Connie; you’ve always been news. One hint of this, just one hint, and they’ll be after you like a pack of jackals!”

  “Well, what if they are? Now listen, Jill,” pursued Constance, assuming an air of sweet reasonableness, “I’ve admitted you had a bad time last night. I’ve admitted that, haven’t I? When Jim invited you to the Villa de Jarnac, you went along as though you’d never been near the place before. And you ran all kinds of risks, in the light of what happened. Aunt Emmeline or one of the other servants might have given you away before they realized what was what.

  “You had your wits about you, I know. You tipped Emmeline the wink; she kept her mouth shut, and so did the others. When Clay asked you what you were doing there, you said I’d grown impatient with you and sent you back from Mobile to stay at the Grunewald Hotel until I returned. Well, Clay accepted that, according to the story you told me; he packed you off to the Grunewald in his car and thought no more about it.

  “But they were all avoidable risks, Jill, which you deliberately incurred although you knew what you were risking. You were under no compulsion, I hope? Nobody forced you to go out there in me first place, surely?”

  “I…I…you see, Connie, I…!”

  “Then do try to face facts, dear; don’t make things more difficult for me than you need. Now what’s all this fuss and nonsense about being afraid of the press? I’ve managed ’em before, you know.”

  “Are you sure you can do it again?” Then Jill flashed out at her. “‘Miss Constance Lambert, last seen as Juliet, has been enacting a very different role for about seven months. What makes you think, Miss Lambert, you have s
pecial qualifications for a trade whose true name should begin with the letter w?’”

  “Now, really, Jill!”

  “Are you going to tell me my language would make a navvy blush?”

  “Not at all, dear, though you might tone it down a little. You’re a good soul, sister mine, and very warmhearted. But you’re not practical, as the French would say; you have no eye for business or the box-office. If my next part on the stage is to be Messalina or some other famous nymphomaniac, I shall play it to standing room only for at least a year. That’s the only effect the press can have. As a matter of sober fact, however…”

  “Are you off on another flight, Connie?”

  “No, my dear. As a matter of sober fact, I was about to say, my next part will be that of Mrs. Clay Blake. A real part, a thrilling part, the part I’m best fitted to play! As for the press, if you’re still so preoccupied with my technical virtue, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll tell Clay tonight, of course. But nobody else shall get the story unless Jim writes it himself.”

  “Jim?”

  “Who else? We can trust him to use good taste. Once he’s in ahead of the working press,” said Constance, beginning excitedly to stride back and forth, “the others will soon stop bothering me and go away. It’ll be dead-and-gone news in a day or two. What do you say, Jim? Won’t ‘Constance-Lambert-as-Yvonne-Brissard’ make a neat little feature for Harper’s Weekly! They call it a scoop, don’t they?”

  “They call it a scoop in novels and on the stage. Nowhere else.”

  “Well, Jim, what do you say?”