The Ghosts' High Noon

by John Dickson Carr

  Jim looked her in the eye.

  “I don’t know, Constance. My editor, Colonel Harvey, did tell me he’d like to beat the wire services with something or other. And there can be no doubt it’s news. But the Weekly is a family publication which must ignore many of the facts of life. So I don’t know. Wait, though! I’ve got an idea, too.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m having lunch with Clay at one o’clock, after which I’d intended to file my personality story. I can still do that, of course. But, before I do it, I’ll phone Colonel Harvey in New York and ask him whether he wants me to go ahead with ‘Constance-Lambert-as-Yvonne-Brissard.’ If he says yes, then Bob’s your uncle. If he says no, I’ve still got the other story all ready. Will that do?”

  “That will be perfectly splendid, I’m sure! And it reminds me. When your American John L. Sullivan was in London some years back, the late King Edward, then Prince of Wales, invited him to one of the Prince’s clubs. Your famous prize-fighter—he was knocked out here in New Orleans just twenty years ago, Clay tells me—your famous prize-fighter turned up at the Prince’s club accompanied by a young American journalist whom some master of ceremonies refused to admit. Unless they admitted Mr. Brisbane, said the champion, he wouldn’t go into the damn place himself. So they admitted Mr. Brisbane.”

  Constance struck an attitude.

  “And I’m like the great John L., at least in that respect. Unless the story goes to my own favorite journalist, thanks very much, then nobody gets it at all!”

  “But, Connie…!”

  “Be quiet, Jill! And now, gentlemen, I know you won’t mind if I take my little sister upstairs for a private conference that can’t interest either the press or the police? It’s just occurred to me that—” She broke off. “Yes, Jim? Something else on your mind?”

  Her favorite newspaperman addressed Jill.

  “You’ve been at the Grunewald Hotel since yesterday morning, have you?”

  “Yes, Jim. I shall be there until this afternoon, as you heard Connie say. Then we both go back to the villa.”

  “Where is the Grunewald?”

  “Baronne Street, quite close to the St. Charles. It’s a big white building you can’t miss.”

  “Isn’t there a celebrated restaurant, bar, supper-room, something of that sort?”

  “You mean the Cave? It’s an underground place got up to look exactly like a cave stretching away in the distance. There’s a dance floor; they’ve got entertainers, too, and a small string orchestra. But mainly it’s known to connoisseurs for fine food and wines.”

  “Will you have dinner with me there tonight, Jill?”

  “Jim, I’d love to!” Her face lit up, but she hesitated. “That is, if Connie doesn’t mind?”

  “No, dear, of course I don’t mind! Pay your bill at the Grunewald, but don’t leave there until after dinner. Then Jim can bring you home in style. And now, gentlemen, you will excuse both of us for a few minutes?”

  Lieutenant Trowbridge got up heavily.

  “Yes, ma’am, we’ll excuse you. It’s a good thing, Miss Lambert, you’re not the murderer we’re looking for! What with all the voice-changes and tricks you’ve been showing us for the last half hour you could ’a’ been the Wicked Voice on the Telephone as sure as shooting!”

  “What wicked voice on the telephone? What are you talking about now?”

  “Just a tricky part of the case, ma’am. Don’t matter two hoots; forget it.”

  “I make one stipulation, though!” Constance said firmly. “If you’re having lunch with Clay, Jim, you won’t breathe a word of what you know? You won’t even hint at it? I reserve the privilege of telling him. Entendu?”

  “Bien entendu. A’ voir, chère artiste!”

  Taking Jill’s arm, Constance led her out and closed the door. Lieutenant Trowbridge wandered for a moment amid the cluttered furniture, then tried to sum up his own state of mind.

  “Holy—jumping—gee-whillikers!” he roared, using a thunderous voice for so mild an imprecation. “This thing don’t get better; it just gets worse!”

  “Having a good time, Lieutenant?”

  “No, Franz Josef, I’d NOT call it a good time. I’ve been sitting here on hot bricks, feeling like an intruder or worse. Any minute, I think, the old general will come charging in to say, ‘Cops, eh? What does this cop think he’s up to, bringing his big feet into my house?’”

  “You’re not star-gazing for explanations, are you? You don’t seriously think Constance Lambert might be the Voice?”

  “No, ’course I don’t think so!”

  “But it does open up possibilities, doesn’t it? We’re probably right in postulating the Voice as a man. But it might be a woman. It could be Constance Lambert, as you said. In the farthest realm of nightmare it might even be old Mrs. Laird, if she’s still actress enough to do a man’s voice on the phone.”

  “Now don’t you go star-gazin’, Franz Josef! I’m confused enough as it is, and that damn voice has got my goat! When I looked for you at the Sentinel office a while back, I met the managing editor: big shambling Yankee named Perkins, who kept fiddling with a yellow pencil, but can think straight enough any day in the week.

  “It seems there have been some anonymous phone calls to people there. The latest was to a new girl who works in Mr. Perkins’s office. The Voice, if it was the same one, accused Mary Rikert of being up to fun and games with her beau in the parish house of the church, and said mother was going to hear all the details. I couldn’t get it straight; the girl has hysterics as soon as you ask her anything at all, and I had more important troubles on my mind.”

  Lieutenant Trowbridge shook his head as though to clear it.

  “Also, ’pears to me,” he went on, “we no sooner come near a piece of real information than we always get sidetracked. Flossie Yates, now. When I turned up here, didn’t you say Flossie knows the answers we want? What did you get out of Flossie, anyway?”

  Jim gave him an edited version of that morning’s interview with Miss Yates. His companion heard him out in growing excitement.

  “That’s more smart detective work, Franz Josef! You say you visited her yesterday for a ‘purely personal reason.’ What was the personal reason? Did you want to know whether Flossie hires out twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls to anybody who’s got the dough? We could have told you that; we’ve known at headquarters for some time, though she works out of Storyville and if the girls are proved professionals it’s hard to touch anybody. Was that your personal reason?”

  “Whatever my reason, Lieutenant, it was personal and only to satisfy my own curiosity. She knew I would be going there even before I phoned for an appointment. Somebody had already phoned and tipped her off. Since it wasn’t Leo, for whose calls made and received we can account…”

  “Since it wasn’t Mr. Shepley, who else could have known you were going?”

  “Exactly. The only reasonable supposition…No, that won’t work either. We seem to be stymied whichever way we turn.”

  “Well, we’re not going to stay stymied! If you’ll just keep your thinking-cap on…”

  “It’s not much use, I’m afraid. I mustn’t get a swelled head and believe I’m Sherlock Holmes just because I made a few lucky hits about Constance and Jill.”

  “They weren’t lucky hits, to my way of thinking. You could see what was in front of you; not many people can do that.”

  “There’s a point in front of me now, Lieutenant, except that I can’t quite grasp it. When I first met a certain person in this affair, I thought I must have met him somewhere before. I hadn’t; it was because he reminded me of someone, but of whom? That doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

  “It can’t make much sense if you don’t explain it.”

  “It won’t make much sense even if I do explain it. Meanwhile, I’ll go on groping and may touch the meaning. You…?”

  “I’m going across the street and have a shot at Flossie myself. Don’t worry! I’ll use kid
gloves; I’ll treat her like the lady she thinks she is. But I’ll get the truth out of her, so help me!”

  All bursting energy, he went to the door with Jim beside him; they strolled along the hall towards the front door.

  “I think it’ll pay me,” said Lieutenant Trowbridge, his hand on the knob, “to keep in pretty close touch with you. Where are you meeting your namesake for lunch?”

  “Place called Philippe’s. Know it?”

  “Everybody knows it. It’s quite a joint, strictly for swells. If you’re meeting him at one o’clock, don’t delay too long ’less you want to be late; it’s turned twelve-thirty now.”

  “One last question, Lieutenant. Are you still as suspicious of my namesake as you were last night?”

  “Well…now! I guess maybe I must ’a’ been in a mood, sort of, like some others I could mention. The mood’s not so strong today. I’ll still keep an eye on the gentleman, you can bet. But I won’t get carried away. Now a last question for you, Franz Josef. How the hell,” roared Honest Zack, “can a man be shot through the head at the wheel of an automobile when there’s nobody there to do it? See you soon, I expect. So long.”

  The front door opened, and then closed after him.

  Jim turned back, to see Jill descending the broad staircase at the rear of the hall. Though she looked rather strained round the eyes, she had regained much of her composure. Impulsively she held out her hand, and Jim took it.

  “I’ve been having quite a time with Connie. I simply can’t make her see she needn’t go out of her way to create scandal. Never mind, though! Am I forgiven for deceiving you?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Jill.”

  “I really believe you mean that!”

  “I mean everything I say to you, my dear; I’ve meant it since Monday morning. Shall we meet in the lobby of the Grunewald at seven-thirty tonight?”

  “Oh, yes, please!”

  “Is evening dress obligatory for the Cave, as it is for most such places in London? I brought none with me. If white tie and tails are de rigueur, I can always buy something off the peg at one of those shops in Canal Street.”

  “It’s not obligatory, though the older people wear it; dress as you like! —And may I have my hand back, Jim?”

  “Not permanently, I hope.”

  He released her hand. Jill, moving very slightly away from him, stood with her back to a French tapestry whose faded gray-and-green colors evidently depicted the siege of Troy. Again she lifted her eyes.

  “You’re going to solve this mystery, aren’t you, as Count Dimitri did when he exposed Baron von Stubling’s treason? You really are going to solve the mystery?”

  “I hope so, but don’t bank on it.”

  “Is there any way I can help you, Jim?”

  “I don’t know; you might. For instance, leading up to it: does Mathilde de Jarnac Laird know Constance never left New Orleans, but has been staying with the Claytons since Wednesday of last week?”

  “No, Jim; there was no occasion to tell her. We’ve never called at her house, of course; we negotiated things through Leo. And she’s never called on us, except once or twice when her son wasn’t at home and she could be sure Peter didn’t know.”

  “Young Peter, then, has no idea who Constance really is?”

  “Good heavens, of course he hasn’t! Do you think his mother would tell him anything?”

  “Rather a peculiar old girl, in one way or another. To take one aspect of it: should you say Madam Laird is less liberal-minded than the Claytons?”

  “In some ways, yes. In other ways, no, distinctly no! The general and his wife, you see, have an absolute obsession about—”

  Jill broke off. He had heard no sound of hoofs or wheels in the street. But he did hear the click and rattle of a key in the front door. Alarm flashed into Jill’s eyes and seemed to hold her rigid. Jim swung round.

  Into the hall, with an effect of shouldering the door rather than merely opening it, strode a craggy, straight-backed old man in frock coat and silk hat, with a gold-headed walking-stick in his hand.

  He came to a halt, sweeping off the hat, and drew himself still more upright as he looked at them. Though actually no taller than Jim, he seemed gigantic. And there could be no doubt about the cragginess. He had the white hair and closely cut white beard usually seen in pictures of the late Robert E. Lee. But there seemed none of the kindliness or good nature we associate with a man once known as Marse Robert; quite the reverse.

  Jill found her voice.

  “Good morning, General Clayton!” she said, with a kind of false brightness. “May I present Mr. James Blake, who represents Harper’s Weekly in New York? Mr. Blake, General Clayton.”

  If age had not shrunk Hellcat Tom Clayton, neither had it dimmed his glacial eye or much weakened the pitch of his voice.

  “You are from the North, sir?” he asked.

  Jim met that level stare.

  “I am, sir.”

  And then Jill rushed in.

  “This gentleman was born in the North, General Clayton. But he took his degree at William and Mary. A Virginia ancestor of his was one of the college’s founders in 1693.”

  “Indeed?” said General Clayton. “Is it possible, sir, you can recall the name of that particular ancestor?”

  “His name, sir, was Septimus Blake.”

  Some slightly different expression stirred in the glacial face. General Clayton shifted from one foot to the other.

  “Septimus Blake?” he repeated. “Squire Blake of Pemberton Hall, Roanoke, whose portrait may now be seen at Richmond?”

  “I believe so.”

  There was a slight, heavy pause.

  “My own forebears were Virginians, sir,” said Hellcat Tom, suddenly extending his hand. “May I bid you welcome to my house, Mr. Blake, where you will ever find me happy to receive you? But I ask your pardon; I should have known. You have too much the manner and bearing of a gentleman, sir, to be called Yankee in any form or degree.”

  There seemed no proper reply to this. A frightened maid, who had already come scurrying in with Jim’s hat, handed it over in both deference and relief as he made his farewells.

  They ushered him to the front door. He went down the steps and across the street to his car, headed for Philippe’s, headed for lunch, and headed for another cloudburst of trouble by 2:30 that afternoon.

  PART FOUR:

  QUEST OF A MURDERER

  16

  SOME CHURCH CLOCK OF the Vieux Carré was striking two as Clay and Jim finished lunch at Philippe’s.

  They ate under the open sky, where tables had been set out in a patio of gray flagstones and flowering plants. Though there was a fairly large crowd, both for the patio and for the main dining-room indoors, they had been given a favored table somewhat apart from the others. And they had been attended by Philippe himself, great-grandson of the restaurant’s founder. Not far away the vast, empty shell of the once great St. Louis Hotel—still fronting Royal Street for a block’s length, though now abandoned to rats and ruin—towered up under its balloon-like dome.

  Both Clay and Jim ate lightly, consuming only half a bottle of Anjou between them. Not until the coffee had been brought did Clay so much as refer to any matter of relevancy or moment.

  Though hardly the haunted, hag-ridden figure of last night, he had much on his mind. Clay’s manner seemed almost too easy; he smiled too often. Once he had been called away briefly to the telephone inside, preserving a mask-like face on his return. Then, with coffee poured and cigarettes lighted, he faced his companion earnestly across the table.

  “Yvonne’s back in town,” he began. “She phoned my office this morning, and caught me just coming in again half an hour after you’d phoned and missed me.”

  “You were very glad to hear from her, I imagine. Where was she phoning from?”

  “From the villa, I suppose; where else would she be? And ‘glad,’ Jim, is a very mild word. I asked her to marry me—bang, just like that!—and
she said yes. It’s not entirely unexpected, is it?”

  “Not entirely, no. You said last night you had come to a decision about her, and that seemed a possible decision. Heartiest congratulations, Clay! I know you’ll be very happy!”

  “I know it, too, and I’m a happy man now. An end of all deception and furtiveness, thank God! Out in the open at last, and doing what I should have done long ago! I’m having dinner with her tonight, so that we can make some plans for the future. Wouldn’t care to join us, would you?”

  “Thanks, but I’m having dinner with—” Jim had almost said “her sister,” but he corrected himself smoothly. “I’m having dinner with Jill in the Cave at the Grunewald. We’ll see you afterwards, though. If there should be any champagne available to toast the bride…”

  “There’ll be champagne by the bucket, I promise you! Gloria in excelsis, Jim, I’m on top of the world!”

  Jim glanced round. At a table on the far side of the patio he thought he had caught sight of a back that looked familiar. But there was nobody near them, nobody within possible earshot.

  “Forgive me for introducing the unpleasant, but what about that other matter? The Wicked Voice and its threats if you don’t withdraw your candidacy today?”

  Tall, fair-haired, mobile of eye and mouth, Clay smote his fist on the table.

  “Yesterday morning,” he said, “I told the Wicked Voice it could go to hell and slammed the receiver. I’m still of the same mind, only more so. Withdraw my candidacy? In a pig’s eye I will! The Wicked Voice may do its damnedest; let it try. Once you knuckle under to threats, once you knuckle under to anybody, he’s got you on the run and he knows it. I don’t amount to much, I know, but I can stand fast and I will! As for the Wicked Voice’s latest trick…”

  “S-ss-t, gently, and not so loud! I think we’re going to have visitors!”

  Across the patio and among the tables moved Mathilde de Jarnac Laird, closely attended by her bulky son. Though she had a casual air of drifting, she was in fact drifting straight towards their table.

  Both Jim and Clay rose up. As soon as Jim encountered Peter Laird for the third time, something clicked like a light-switch in his brain. Clay addressed the poised, fashionable lady with great heartiness.