The Ghosts' High Noon

by John Dickson Carr

  “And it was signed ‘The voice.’ Nothing else; just ‘the voice’ in those same crude block capitals.

  “My God! Can you imagine how I felt?”

  “Yes, I can readily imagine how you felt. But—”

  “In honesty as well as in self-defense,” the other rushed on, “I must insist the charge wasn’t true and isn’t true. I’ve heard often enough there are men with a passion for half-formed bodies and the caresses of the immature. I accept it as a fact, as I accept the fact that there are sadists and masochists and the other deviates of the sexologists’ books. But my attitude is the same towards each: I simply don’t understand how anybody could enjoy it. It’s not merely that I’m guiltless; the truth is that I’ve never even been tempted.

  “And yet that’s not the point, as you were probably about to say. The charge wasn’t true. But what if people believed it to be true? How much of life, Jim, is conditioned by those deadly little words ‘what if!’ Shall I go on?”

  “Yes, by all means continue, again provided you feel up to continuing.”

  Briefly Clay stopped pacing again.

  “Curse it, man, don’t you see I’ve got to get it off my chest now? It’s all very well to say, ‘Dismiss such things with contempt.’ You can’t dismiss ’em with contempt; or at least I can’t. I also tried to tell myself the note was a crank letter that would have no sequel. Treating it as a crank letter didn’t work either. The more I thought the more I brooded and the worse everything seemed to be.

  “I spare you my state of mind over the weekend, when I had to drink Governor Wilson’s health and agree with the universal sentiment that the Democratic party would have a great renaissance after twenty years. In New Orleans, twenty years ago, they hanged some French doctor for the murder of a thirteen-year-old girl, less because he’d killed her by accident than because he’d seduced her by choice. Did you ever hear of the case?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of it.”

  “At Pennsylvania Station, on Monday afternoon, I dived into my drawing-room on that train and said I didn’t want to be disturbed except for meals. When Uncle Mose Tompkins told me Leo Shepley was in drawing-room A of the car ahead, I swore him to secrecy.

  “And what happened, when I started brooding again?

  “If I could catch Leo alone, I thought to myself, I could tell him my story and ask him how he would view the situation. At least I wouldn’t have to go round and round in the same old squirrel-cage of imagining the worst that could happen.

  “I gave myself enough time, God knows. I waited until nearly twelve, when everybody except a night-owl like Leo was almost sure to have turned in. In my dressing-gown and slippers I went along to drawing-room A, car sixteen. Do you remember?”

  Jim remembered.

  “I didn’t hear any woman’s voice,” Clay pursued. “But I did hear Leo’s voice and what I now know to be yours. If I knocked, it seemed to me, I could always make some excuse to see the old hellion alone. Do you remember what he was talking about?

  “Leo uses—sorry; used!—tones of thunder when he believed himself to be speaking in a hushed whisper. In that kind of voice he was sharpening and deepening every fear that had clawed at me since Thursday. He mentioned Flossie Yates, whom I had vaguely heard of as a trader in pubescent flesh. He said I was a much less decisive character than I seemed to be. He said being innocent wouldn’t matter if somebody were really out to get me. And he added, finally, that a game of that sort was a wicked and foolproof game which never failed.

  “I rapped at the door, harder than I’d intended, by a kind of nervous reflex I couldn’t control. The moment my knuckles hit that panel, I knew I couldn’t face up to it. I couldn’t face even Leo; I couldn’t face anybody!

  “So I turned and bolted. He didn’t open the door instantly, you remember. I’m fairly fast on my feet when I need to be, and carpet slippers make very little noise. When I passed Uncle Mose in the aisle, all I had to do was put my finger on my lip; I made it right with him financially later on.

  “I’m worse than indecisive; I’m downright weak. I ran like a scared rabbit back to the bolt-hole. And yet, considering all the circumstances and my state of mind, can you blame me?”

  “No, of course not,” Jim told him sincerely. “Don’t call it weak or by any other harsh name; it’s what every man among us might have done. If I seemed to find knock-and-run tactics senseless or unreasonable, it was because I didn’t know the circumstances, and I apologize.”

  “Apologize? You did some very shrewd detective work in piecing things together, though it’s not likely to help me much. Speaking of detective work, what did you do or say that so impressed Zack Trowbridge?”

  “Impressed Zack Trowbridge?”

  “Don’t underestimate Zack. He’s pretty shrewd himself; I’ve had to handle him as a hostile witness in court. You’ve noticed, haven’t you, he treats you with a respect very near deference? But never mind the local police department! Shall we bring my own idiotic saga up to date, and let it go at that?”

  Clay now seemed to be making every effort at lightness. He had put away the key-ring, and no longer paced.

  “You also called the turn on how Leo found me this morning. Mose Tompkins told him. By that time I’d had six days of stewing myself. Leo gave me a lift home in a cab, and either at the train or on the way home I told him very much what I’ve told you now.

  “I still live with my parents in the house where I was born. Both parents, fortunately, are in the country this week. I kept wondering what other damn haymaker could hit me out of nowhere, and went through the mail without coming across anything except bills. But I soon found out.

  “I hadn’t more than sat down to breakfast, which was about nine-thirty, when the phone rang. It was a voice, I might say the voice. A man’s voice, I’m sure, but so soft and whispery that the only possible word for it is ‘wicked.’ The voice asked whether I hadn’t got his letter, and said he was ready to give me orders I’d better obey. I went through the usual business of, ‘Who are you? Who’s speaking?’ But it was no use. Next came the ultimatum. If I don’t withdraw my candidacy for Congress within the next twenty-four hours, full revelation will be made about my dealings with one child called Sue and another called Billie Jean. And I can’t describe to you how that infernal voice gloated.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told the voice to go to hell and slammed the receiver on him. All the same, I wasn’t feeling as big as I liked to pretend. Leo had gone by that time, so I got through on the phone to him immediately. Leo seemed to know all about the wicked voice—in fact, he was the one who called it wicked—and was as soothing and reassuring as possible. But…”

  Jim held up his hand.

  “Wait! Isn’t there something wrong here? You said you talked to Leo at a little past one o’clock in the afternoon, which was two hours after he talked to me.”

  “Don’t you be the one to get it scrambled, Jim! You asked me about the ‘last’ time I talked to Leo. There were two calls: one from me to him between nine-thirty and a quarter to ten, the other from him to me at shortly after one. The second was our last conversation. When I tried to get him again at two o’clock, he’d gone out.”

  “I’ve got it straight now, thanks. Anything else?”

  “Yes. Just before I slammed the receiver on my old pal the voice, he made one remark that would have scared the pants off a wooden Indian. He said—”

  Gravel crunched somewhere outside. Clay checked himself abruptly, trying to look as though he were not there at all. But brisk footsteps approached. Into the shed came the derby hat and aggressive moustache of Lieutenant Trowbridge.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” said Lieutenant Trowbridge, “but maybe we can get some place after all. Whose voice was it, Mr. Blake? And what was it he wanted to tell you?”

  PART THREE:

  LOVER’S QUEST

  11

  THIS ATTACK, IF IT could be called an attack, Clay met with guard raised
and little sign of being disconcerted.

  “Don’t get excited, Zack,” he replied. “It was nothing at all.”

  “Nothing at all, was it? Sure of that?”

  “Absolutely sure. I don’t know the fellow’s name, of course. It was just some lunatic who keeps making crank calls to talk foolishness. You never get rid of him if you encourage him by talking back. The only proper course is to hang up the receiver at once.”

  Whenever Lieutenant Trowbridge’s temper had risen, they were all soon to remember, a kind of strawberry-rash blossomed in his broad face. The strawberry-rash showed plainly now. But his anger did not seem to be directed at Clay Blake.

  “I was too far away to catch more than the general drift,” he admitted. “So I can’t call you a liar—not that I would, anyway—if that’s what you say it was. Never mind! Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  And he answered himself.

  “What we’ve got, gentlemen, is the damnedest situation I ever did hear of! I was hoping we could clear up at least part of it before I landed in the nut-house along with the rest of you. Now a crank’s phone call may not help much, one way or the other. But it does give us a jumping-off place.

  “All day, it seems, all kinds of people have been making all kinds of phone calls for all kinds of reasons, including Mr. Shepley himself. It might be important, sort of, to find out just what Mr. Shepley was up to during his last hours on earth.”

  “You never said a truer word, Zack! It’s of the utmost importance!”

  Lieutenant Trowbridge squared himself.

  “Why did he drive out here tonight? When he did drive out, hell-bent for election, no less than four people were waiting for him. Pete Laird and Pete’s tame chauffeur, at the gate of Pete’s mother’s house down the road. The other gentleman called Blake and that fair-haired young lady, at the gate of this house.

  “You, sir,” he addressed Jim with some deference, “got a phone call from some impostor claiming to be Mr. Clay Blake. That was about nine-thirty tonight, I think you told me?”

  “Just nine-thirty,” Jim said.

  “The impostor invited you out here, seeming pretty urgent about it? He said Mr. Shepley would be coming along, too, and asked you to wait for Mr. Shepley at the gate?”

  “Not exactly that, Lieutenant. I was the one who suggested waiting, and he agreed with every evidence of relief.”

  “Yes, you suggested it. We’d better all remember that: you suggested it!” Briefly the headquarters detective opened his eyes wide and then narrowed them. “Now young Pete Laird…you both heard his testimony, or at least a good part of it, before I hoicked you all into the house. I’ve got Pete’s testimony here, I’ve got it in my notebook, all clear enough except when he got hysterical once or twice.

  “But both you gentlemen, particularly Mr. Clay Blake, are acquainted with all the Lairds, or most of ’em.” He appealed to Clay. “While we run through Pete’s testimony and try to decide where we’re at, will you sort of act as interpreter if I need help? It has to do with more phone calls and Mr. Shepley’s movements. Since we’re all agreed about the importance…”

  “No doubt about the importance,” Clay assured him. “I was trying to call it to Jim’s attention a while ago, but we didn’t get very far. Suppose I just repeat what Pete said, or what I think he said, and you correct me if I go wrong?”

  “Can’t make a fairer offer than that! O.K., shoot!”

  Clay drew back a little.

  “A lot of this is hearsay evidence, and would never be allowed in court. But there can’t be much doubt it’s true; it can easily be corroborated at source.

  “Well! At the Sentinel office, as at the office of any evening journal, they put the paper to bed between three and three-thirty in the afternoon. But Alec Laird usually stays there until five or even later, being a conscientious sort.”

  “He’s a very fine gentleman, Mr. Laird is! Looks at you like a schoolteacher when you haven’t done your homework, but treats you fair and square just the same. I met him myself the other day. Well?”

  “At about five this afternoon, when Alec was preparing to leave, Leo Shepley phoned him at the Sentinel office.”

  “That’s one of the things I can’t get straight. Why did he want to speak to Mr. Laird?”

  “He didn’t. He was trying to reach Jim, whom he’d spoken to at the Sentinel office that morning. No, Zack, no!” Clay raised his hand. “Though we can’t know what was on Leo’s mind at that time, since he doesn’t seem to have told anybody at any time, he can’t really have imagined Jim would stay there from eleven in the morning until five in the afternoon. No doubt it was just on the off-chance. He’d phoned Jim’s hotel, found Jim was out, and tried the Sentinel just in case. That doesn’t matter, but the sequel does matter because it concerns several Lairds.

  “Alec went along home. Alec and his wife, Sylvia, were supposed to have dinner tonight with Mrs. Sam Laird and Pete. Whether or not you’ve heard this, Sylvia enjoys bad health. ‘Enjoys’ is the word; she’s neurotic. When Alec got home, he found Sylvia in one of her fits, swearing she couldn’t go out that night or it would kill her. While Alec was trying to persuade her, and Sylvia still wasn’t having any, along came another phone call.”

  “That was the unknown, wasn’t it?”

  “Not unknown, Zack; just unnamed.” Clay looked at him with a hypnotic eye. “Some employee of Alec’s at the Sentinel had seen Leo Shepley getting partly tanked up in a bar on Bourbon Street. Not really tanked up; Leo hasn’t been putting away much booze in recent days. But slightly oiled, very depressed, and muttering wildly if not very intelligibly to anybody who’d listen. He said something about going ‘out Bayou St. John way,’ and also something about putting a bullet through his head. This was shortly after seven o’clock.

  “The Sentinel man who heard and saw this thought he’d better phone Alec. He must be a high-ranking employee, whoever he is, if he had the nerve to disturb the boss at home.”

  “Right!” said Lieutenant Trowbridge. “I’ll take it from there, if it’s all the same to you; I want to make sure how young Pete fits into all this.”

  With something of a flourish the lieutenant took a notebook out of his inside breast pocket. But he did not open the notebook; he held it as though he held a weapon.

  “So Mrs. Alec Laird, having decided she’s not going any place tonight, takes over the telephoning herself. She rings old Mrs. Laird’s house down the road. Time, seven-thirty. But does she ask to speak to the old lady? No, not by a damnsight!”

  “The sad fact is,” interjected Clay, “that Alec and Sylvia Laird don’t get along any too well with the dowager duchess, though Alec tries to conceal it. But they both take an interest in Pete. And Leo Shepley has always been Pete’s hero. If Sylvia had to spread a little neurosis even in talking to Pete…”

  “Which she did, Mr. Blake, and it’s not hearsay evidence now. When Pete heard his hero was lapping it up and talking suicide, he says, he’d have gone out to look for Mr. Shepley if he had to search every bar on Bourbon between Canal Street and the Esplanade. Only…”

  “Only he couldn’t,” Clay supplied. “Dinner at eight has been a ritual at Sunnington Hall since Sam and Mathilde Laird were married. Pete couldn’t have missed it; his mother wouldn’t have allowed him to miss it. But dinner’s always over punctually at nine-thirty, after which the duchess goes up to her room and (of all things) reads plays until bedtime. To a degree, at least, that released Pete.”

  “All right, and what does he do then? He’s got only one lead, as you might put it. Mr. Shepley’d said something about coming out Bayou St. John way. That might mean Sunnington Hall, or it might mean this house here; it couldn’t very well mean anyplace else.

  “Maybe the young ’un dithers a little; it’d be only natural if he did. But he got prepared. He had car and chauffeur all ready and alert when Mr. Shepley went sky-hootin’ past at…what was the time? Are you all agreed on it?”

  “Nobody took
very careful note, Zack. But the consensus seems to be that the shot was fired, and Leo slammed into those doors there, at near enough to ten minutes after ten o’clock. It wasn’t late.”

  “No, it wasn’t late. As I say, Pete was all prepared and ready. What he did makes pretty good sense, when you understand everything behind it.”

  Here Lieutenant Trowbridge inflated his lungs for powerful speech. The strawberry-rash stood out bright red.

  “But, beginning at ten minutes past ten o’clock,” he roared, “not one damn thing makes any sense at all!”

  “It does seem a little confused, doesn’t it?”

  “Confused? It’s crazy! If every witness is telling the truth, and four of ’em at least can be checked on, it can’t be one thing and yet it can’t be the other. By rights Mr. Shepley ought to have killed himself. But it can’t be suicide, because there’s no gun.”

  Lieutenant Trowbridge stood back to look at the workbench, which threw a dense black shadow on the concrete floor.

  “I got here myself shortly after it happened. By general agreement, nobody who’d been in this place went out of it for as much as a second. And yet, though the weapon had been held against Mr. Shepley’s head—you saw the powder-burns—there wasn’t any weapon. I searched for it immediately; I searched with a flashlight; I searched every damnation nook and cranny there is. Well?”

  Nobody answered him.

  “And yet it can’t be murder either,” he pointed out, “even if Pete Laird now swears it must have been. Our distinguished journalist, the chauffeur, and Pete himself all have to say there was nobody hiding in this place at the time, and nobody slipped out afterwards. On the other hand, it can’t be that somebody among our four witnesses has been telling lies to hide dirty work. Two in one car, Pete and Raoul, and two in the other car, Mr. Jim Blake and the young lady, can all check on each other for every minute of the time. If this was murder, don’t you get it, both the gun and the murderer have vanished into thin air!”