The Ghosts' High Noon

by John Dickson Carr

  He looked at Walt Winkelhorst, who had again climbed down to use the crank.

  “Well, we’re here in good time, anyway. What do I owe you?”

  “Ain’t no charge, sir. This one’s on the house.”

  “But…!”

  “Charley Emerson said I’d try to overcharge you, didn’t he? Well! Maybe I would ’a’ done that, as a general thing; I’m ornery enough fer to do it. But you think I’m a goddam Yankee?” Walt demanded with sudden passion. “You think I got no conscience at all? Stickin’ out of my pocket’s the ten-case note you gimme ’thout no strings to it. You’re a real sport, Mr. Blake, so this one’s on the house.”

  Now glowing with satisfaction, Jim thanked him and went on into the station.

  A handful of people straggled through the hall’s marble vastness. There was not so much time as he had thought: the clock hands stood at 10:35.

  He bought cigarettes at a counter devoted mainly to magazines and candy; the morning papers had not yet appeared. He redeemed his suitcase at the checkroom and handed it to one of the hovering redcaps. Though the bag was neither heavy nor inconvenient, he wanted the services of a guide.

  “Atlanta-New Orleans Limited,” he said, consulting separate tickets. “Drawing-room B, car sixteen. Do you know which gate?”

  “Ah knows it, suh. Train been in mebbe fifteen minutes. Follow me.”

  After clear lights on marble in the main hall, the stone area beyond held grittiness and gloom. It was gloomier and grittier still in platform aisles between the Martian shapes of trains.

  The shape of his own train, with steam up, rose massive and somber at Jim’s left hand, emitting chinks of yellow light only at occasional window-corners or into the vestibules between each car. His redcap guide led him for some distance beside it before pointing to the numbered card in an end window.

  “Put that bag in the drawing-room, please,” Jim instructed, “and see me on your way back. Since I can’t miss the train now, I’m in no hurry.”

  And he wasn’t in a hurry, either.

  The redcap swung up the iron steps to the vestibule, vanished into car sixteen, returned within twenty seconds, was rewarded, and hastened away.

  Jim remained on the platform at the foot of the iron steps. One or two last-minute passengers still scrambled for the train. But most would be aboard already, berths made up, settling in for the night.

  Well, now, what had been the meaning of the Thomas Flyer and its ultimate failure to pursue? With the excitement over and his pulses no longer hammering, what might an intelligent man make of it?

  He couldn’t take the business seriously now; or could he? If Charley had been right after all…

  What sort of face had he expected to see as the Thomas bore down? He had not recognized either of its two occupants. On the other hand, he had been afforded so short a look, in uncertain light, that he might not have recognized either even if he had known both. It did smack of conspiracy, in a way; but why, in sanity’s name, a conspiracy against Jim Blake?

  All this was nonsense! Why think about faces anyway? There was only one face he wanted to see. At this time tonight the owner of that face would be somewhere out in the Atlantic, a passenger on the Cunarder Mauretania. And he had a job to do; he must concentrate on business.

  Vaguely he became aware of someone standing near the edge of the vestibule above, where a little light spilled out through the glass panel in the door of car sixteen. He himself couldn’t stay here any longer; he had better find his drawing-room. Official activity boiled along the platform; a lantern swung and winked towards the head of the train. They would be under way at any moment, though he had heard no cry of “Bo-o-ard!”

  What he did hear was a different noise altogether.

  As though the engineer were playing games, a convulsive kind of shudder jolted through the whole line of cars. Metal whacked metal as couplings bumped together. The person standing above, flung off balance by the heave of the train, reeled and fell.

  For the second time that day Jim’s arms were full of femininity. But on this occasion she pitched backwards, face up. He stepped aside and caught her with both hands, left arm under her back and right arm under the fold of both knees.

  “Enjoying yourself, Jill?” he asked affably. “Either the fates have determined it, or else you’re the one who’s following me.”

  4

  SHE HAD CHANGED HER TAILORED costume for a dress of some soft brownish material under a light, fleecy tan coat. The brim of her large hat brushed his cheek; the face of which he had dreamed was only a few inches from his own.

  “Not again?” Jill Matthews gasped, utterly demoralized. “Dear, gracious heaven, not you I must thank for…”

  “I fear so, though no thanks are needed. Permit me, madam, to anticipate your next words. ‘Put me down, put me down!’ All in good time, Jill. In a very few seconds they’ll be closing up that vestibule. With your permission, then, I will just carry you back up the steps.”

  “The—the steps are awfully steep, though! And the first one’s high off the ground.”

  “Not so very high, Jill. Observe beside me a thing like an overgrown wooden footstool with a slot in it, used for the convenience of passengers. Facilis ascensus Averni, as the poet didn’t say. I hook the box closer with my foot: so. I stand up on it: so. Still carrying your delectable person, I mount the steps: so.

  “But we won’t stay here in the vestibule, Jill. There behind us is the porter, waiting to shut outer doors and seal ’em up. Which car are you in?”

  “S-sixteen. But…!”

  “So am I. With my right hand I turn the knob of the door. We push through, we turn a little to the left, and…here in this aisle I set you down.”

  The narrow aisle stretched between a short row of windows on the left and, on the right, a wall painted to resemble rosewood and pierced by the green-curtained doorway of the men’s smoker and washroom. Since they were at the rear of the car, the continuation of that same wall would be the inner wall of drawing-room B.

  “You’re not going to New Orleans, too?” the soft voice cried at him. “Don’t tell me you’re going to New Orleans?”

  “But I do tell you that. Here we both are, your own destination now evident.”

  “Well,” and she moved her shoulders, “it’s a free country, as they keep saying here. But really and truly, Jim, you needn’t have deceived me like that. You said you were going to Washington!”

  Smoothly gliding, almost stealthily and without a jerk, the train began to move. Jim studied his companion.

  “I said I was going to Washington as the first stop on my trip. If deceit’s to be our theme, young lady, what about your story to me? You said…no, stop! You didn’t actually say you were sailing for England. You said you were going home.”

  “And so I am! New Orleans is home: at least, it’s been home for nearly seven months and the only home I have. I—I work there.”

  “What do you work at, Jill?”

  “Oh, please!” she protested. “Not everything at once, I beg! Do give me a chance to get my breath!”

  She was already breathing quickly. She had retreated a step, the blue-green eyes full of some emotion very like fear. Despite Jill’s slenderness, you could not help noting the well-defined shape of her hips. Then she seemed to wake up from a dream.

  “No, now, really! Let’s not fuss about unimportant things, shall we? We’re here, as you say, and we ought to make the best of it. I got on at New York, of course; I’m in lower seven. Where are you?”

  “An open-handed philanthropist named Colonel Harvey—he gives dinners to four hundred guests at Sherry’s, as he did for William Dean Howells’s seventy-fifth birthday in March—provided both berths of a drawing-room. If you’ll accept a well-intentioned offer, I shall be very glad to swap the drawing-room for lower seven.”

  “No, Jim. Thanks loads, but I’d rather not. Besides, I've already…”

  “You’ve already what? Had the offer of a
swap from somebody else? Or what kind of offer?”

  “No offer at all; I do wish you wouldn’t keep misunderstanding! It’s Drawing-room B, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. How do you know that?”

  “I sat in there from New York to Washington, except when I was having dinner in the restaurant-car, and nobody turned me out or so much as said a word. That’s why I’m at this end of the coach,” Jill gestured slightly towards the green-curtained doorway, “rather than at the other end near the ladies’. Which reminds me: speaking of people who book whole drawing-rooms for themselves, there’s a great friend of yours in A, also at that end.”

  “Oh? Who’s the friend?”

  “Leo Shepley. Quite sober, too.”

  “You know Leo, do you?”

  “He’s a friend of some friends of mine in New Orleans, that’s all.” Jill lifted candid eyes. “I know he’d love to see you, Jim! He talked a lot tonight about his old pal; he liked The Count of Monte Carlo almost as much as I did. And he’s awfully intelligent, though you’d never guess it at first glance. Why not go and have a word with him now?”

  “That’s just what I’ll do. There’s nothing I’d like better, bar one thought that’s been in my mind since eleven o’clock this morning. Lead the way, will you?”

  Jill went ahead, walking on tiptoe.

  The dim-lighted little alley opened into a dark aisle between tiers of upper and lower berths masked by heavy green curtains closely drawn. The scent of those curtains, faintly stuffy but not unpleasant, pervaded the whole car. There was a faint yellow glow from another little alley past drawing-room A.

  The train had gathered speed, swaying and clicking. Jim opened the door of his own drawing-room for a quick glance inside. The ceiling light shone on polished wood edged with gilt. Both berths had been made up; his suitcase stood on the green-covered couch parallel to the berths. Jim closed the door and followed Jill.

  Outside drawing-room A they encountered the conductor, who did conjuring tricks with Jim’s yard of ticket before moving on. Jill had removed her large hat; she gestured with it towards the drawing-room door and lowered her voice.

  “There you are; just knock. He’s not asleep.”

  “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  “Not for a moment, if you don’t mind. I want to freshen up a bit in the—the other place. Just knock, I say. I’ve warned him not to…oh, never mind!”

  She stopped suddenly. And sudden jealousy bared poison fangs; Jim couldn’t help it.

  “Warned him not to…what, for the love of Mike? Jill, were you with Leo in New York?”

  “In New York with him? Good gracious, no! I didn’t even know he was in New York until we found ourselves on the same train and had dinner together. Until this evening I never so much as heard he was acquainted with you. Really, my dear man, I wish you wouldn’t be so dashed peremptory!”

  “And I wish you wouldn’t be so dashed mysterious.”

  “I’m not trying to be mysterious, really and truly I’m not! You’ll hear all about me presently. If I don’t unburden myself and tell you every detail in the first ten minutes, it’s not because there’s anything dark or awful in my life. I hope you believe that much, Jim, because…because…”

  “Yes?”

  “Because I do so want you to believe it!” Once more Jill looked up at him, almost with a prayer in her eyes. “Now you will excuse me for a few minutes, won’t you?”

  Then she was gone.

  Jim meditated, cleared his throat, and knocked.

  “Yes?” boomed a voice. “Whoever the hell you are, come on in!”

  Leo Shepley, fully dressed, stood gaping at his visitor in the space between a made-up lower berth and the green-covered couch. Powerful, heavy of shoulders, outwardly he seemed to have changed little over the years, except that his face had acquired a reddish tinge and the bald patch showed through thinning light-brown hair.

  That Leo was genuinely dumbfounded Jim couldn’t doubt. And the reunion could be called a success. They shook hands with real pleasure and walloped each other on the back.

  “Leo, you old bastard, how are you?”

  “Jim, you unregenerate son-of-a-bitch, have you visited any good whorehouses recently?”

  “Though I apologize for the oversight, I haven’t even patronized one since you took me to Josie Somebody’s in ’98. You may remember…”

  “Yeah, sure. You always did prefer amateur talent, didn’t you? That’s good judgment, Jim. As one of our more notorious madams is said to have remarked, ‘These country club girls are ruining my business!’”

  Many memories returned. In bygone days Leo’s passion for wine, women, and football had been equaled only by his passion for practical jokes, which were never malicious but which so fretted his conscience that he lived in a bad dream until he had called off the joke or put matters right with its victim.

  “‘Then here’s a hand, my trusty fier, and gie’s a hand o’ thine,’” he roared now. “It is you, Jim? It really is you? I can hardly believe it!”

  “Neither could Jill Matthews, when she bumped into me on the platform here a few minutes ago.”

  “Ah, our Jill! Yes, of course. She said she’d met you at Harper’s this morning, but seemed to think you were bound for Washington on an important story.”

  “I’m bound for New Orleans, Leo. The story may or may not be important. I think you can help me with it, if you will.”

  “You betcha, Jim; any damn thing in the world!” Then Leo blinked at him. “But how the holy hell do you come to be chasing a newspaper story? I heard you’d quit your job when you struck pay-dirt with The Count of Monte Carlo.”

  “I did. This is a special assignment for Harper’s Weekly. Did Jill tell you what she was doing at Harper’s, by the way?”

  “No. Just said she had business there. Part of her job, probably.”

  “You don’t happen to know what her job is, I suppose?”

  “You’re damn shouting I know what it is. Who’d think, now, that a gal with such obvious qualifications for you-know-what could be an efficient private secretary?”

  “Jill’s somebody’s private secretary?”

  “Yes. She works for old Ed Hollister, a big-money boy and financial manipulator who moves in such secretive ways that nobody can learn anything about him or even where to find him. Don’t tell her I told you that, though, until she tells you herself. The secretary, in my estimation, has picked up too much of her boss’s secretiveness. She’s an elusive little devil, as you may have noticed.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed.”

  “Smitten with the pretty Limey, are you?”

  “More than smitten, Leo. I’ve fallen hard.”

  “She’s fallen for you, if anybody should ask old Uncle Leo, though I wouldn’t embarrass Jill by intimating it to her. This afternoon, as soon as we were under way from New York, she sat down by herself in an empty drawing-room, and wouldn’t say boo to anybody until I dragged her out for dinner. She had something on her mind then, again if anybody should ask me.”

  Evidently Leo himself had something on his mind. Always garrulous, he was now hurling out words as though for a kind of barrier or screen.

  “For quite a while, it seems, she’s been much taken with that book you wrote. At dinner she told me she’d met the man who wrote it: a very romantic scene, as she described it, like Beatrix descending the stairs in Henry Esmond. When I said the rat who wrote the thing was an old friend of mine, she first went a funny color and backed away from the subject, then started asking questions about you, and finally retreated back to the drawing-room again.”

  “It happens to have been my drawing-room, Leo, though she didn’t know it at the time. As soon as I see her again, I’m going to insist on her taking over that drawing-room and occupying it to the end of the line, while I doss down in the berth she reserved for herself. She hasn’t agreed to it so far…”

  “Maybe she won’t agree at all. She could have had my quarters her
e, if she’d wanted ’em, with no favor asked in exchange. But would she do that little thing? Oh, no: wouldn’t hear of it! Jill’s a peculiar gal in some ways, even for a Britisher.”

  “As soon as I see her again, I said.” Jim had begun to fret. “Look here, Leo, where do you suppose she’s got to? She said she’d be joining us in a few minutes, which was more than a few minutes ago. Unless she turns up in the next few minutes, I’m going out to find her!”

  Leo drew himself up.

  “You’re not going to do one goddamn thing, my friend, until we’ve had at least a drink or two to celebrate this reunion! It does call for a celebration, doesn’t it?”

  “No doubt about that much.”

  “The club car’s closed for the night. I could grease some palms and get it opened again, but that hardly seems necessary even for so memorable an event. I’ve got a bottle of Bourbon with me, so we don’t need anything except glasses and ice and soda. Just press that bell between the windows, will you?”

  As Jim rang for the porter, a light knock at the door heralded the entrance of Jill, who had now discarded coat as well as hat. She stood there sleek-limbed in the brownish dress, with the ceiling light shining on dark-gold hair and fair complexion, her hands clasped. Though the look of strain had not gone from her eyes, she seemed more at ease.

  “Now, then, angel-face,” Leo addressed her grandly, “what about it? Wouldn’t you care for a small drink in honor of this great occasion?”

  “I’d like one very much, thanks, provided we don’t make a night of it and see the dawn up. Also, Leo, considering that people hereabouts are trying to sleep, it’s not really necessary to yell.”

  “Who’s yelling?” Leo shouted. “And there’s no question of turning this into a brawl or anything like it. As I told you at dinner, I’m a reformed character nowadays.”

  “You’re a reformed character?” Jim stared at him. “Since when?”

  “Since about the middle of summer, that’s when! Thinks I to myself, ‘You’re thirty-five years old, son; it’s time you at least started to grow up.’ And it works, Jim. God strike me dead, it really works!”