“Well, I am. Only luck and the grace of God kept me steady when those threats had me in a corner!”
“Leo told us he could be sure of that because, deep down inside him, he tended to be indecisive, too.
“And we find this well instanced by his behavior after that midday phone call. He had been praying the Voice would get after him, who had no reputation to lose. And the accursed Voice had. And Leo knew it was Alec Laird. He would have to act.
“Did he act at once? No, not by any manner of means! He paced the floor, muttering to himself. In your own description, he simmered. At just before two o’clock, he left home—for his club.
“Leo had true iron in his soul. Sooner or later, of course, he would act. But not just yet. Hence that long afternoon, and even part of the evening, while he made up his mind how to handle this.
“He had recognized Alec Laird. While speaking to his would-be tormentor during that crucial phone call, had he given any betraying sign of recognition? Leo was no actor, you know, and Alec’s cleverness needn’t be stressed again. I think Leo had given some sign to the Voice; that, as early as twelve-thirty on Wednesday, Alec feared the game was up and Leo would have to be disposed of.
“Very well. While this was occurring in one part of town, what occurred elsewhere? I went to see Miss Florence Yates. And Miss Yates swore to me, among other things, that Leo Shepley was in a dangerously suicidal mood.”
“For heaven’s sake,” Jill burst out, “how does the Flossie woman fit into all this? Was she Mr. Laird’s real wife, now his widow?”
“Patience, Jill. Lieutenant Trowbridge will tell you in good time. As for the information she relayed to me: she hadn’t spoken to Leo, as she said she had. The murderer had phoned her with instructions, preparing the ground for a crime that must now be inevitable. Perhaps, as the lieutenant suggests, Alec did tell her to treat me kindly. But he did much more. He told her not to be surprised if Leo Shepley killed himself; and she, believing this as she usually believed what he told her, passed it on to me. The spider was already preparing his first plan: if he had to kill Leo, it must be thought a suicide.
“Should you doubt this, recall ensuing events.
“Afternoon became night. At nine-thirty the Voice, pretending to be Clay, phoned me at my hotel and spun a yarn designed to lure me out here as a witness for what would happen.
“I swallowed the bait, Jill, and I brought you along. There we were, waiting at the gate of this villa. A red Mercer Raceabout, with a begoggled and dust-coated figure at the wheel, came roaring up. It was pursued by a gray Cadillac containing two persons. The Mercer swept past us, up the drive and into the way-through. A shot was fired; the car smashed. We gathered round a scene of wreckage, to hear what Peter Laird said had been happening that night.
“At five o’clock that afternoon, according to Peter, Leo had phoned Alec Laird at the Sentinel office; Leo was supposed to be searching for me. As a matter of fact, Leo did phone Alec at five, but it wasn’t in search of me.
“Let’s return to Peter’s story. Alec went home, Peter said, where Alec received the most mysterious message of all. Somebody from the Sentinel, never identified or even inquired after, is supposed to have telephoned Alec at Alec’s home, telling him Leo Shepley was touring Bourbon Street bars and threatening suicide.
“Leo had been doing nothing of the kind, as the police soon proved; he never left his club that afternoon. The ‘mysterious informant’ was an invention who never existed.
“At seven-thirty Sylvia Laird, whom the world knows as Alec’s wife, did actually phone Sunnington Hall and speak to Peter. She said she and her husband would not come to dinner at Madam Laird’s that night, and repeated the tale of Leo’s mythical doings in Bourbon Street.
“All this information, both the true and the false, we heard through the mouth of young Peter Laird. But who was the source of everything? Who stood behind it, and from whom did it stem?”
“You mean Alec Laird, don’t you?” demanded Clay. “Yes! He didn’t go home when he was believed to have gone home; he stayed at the Sentinel office. Since he badly needed and would need an alibi for the whole evening, he would establish one. And it wasn’t difficult. Sylvia Laird may be neurotic and a nagger, but she obeys him implicitly. So he phoned Sylvia and ordered her to ring Sunnington Hall with the story he wanted told. There was his alibi if anybody questioned it. Am I right?”
“Entirely right,” Jim agreed. “The true parts and the false parts in that story are as easy to separate as the true parts and the false parts in the story of the murder. We were hypnotized from the start into taking a wrong view of the murder, which ought to be corrected now. This crime, apparently, was committed at ten minutes past ten. Leo Shepley, apparently at the wheel of the Mercer…”
Constance Lambert put up her hand.
“Just a moment, please!” she cried. “‘Apparently’ at ten minutes past ten? ‘Apparently’ at the wheel of the Mercer? Are you telling us it wasn’t Leo who drove that car?”
“It couldn’t have been, I’m afraid. Leo had been dead since about nine o’clock. Shall I deal with that part of it?”
“If you don’t, I’m afraid both Jill and I will have a fit!”
Jim assembled facts in his mind.
“The first time I saw Peter Laird, I thought I must have met him before. I hadn’t, of course; it was because he reminded me of somebody. The light didn’t switch on until I saw him for the third time at Philippe’s restaurant on Thursday.
“He reminded me of Leo Shepley. He’s got the same wide and heavy, almost top-heavy, shoulders, as well as the same bulky body, though Leo was principally muscle and Leo’s admirer is mostly puppy-fat. They don’t look alike, of course; Peter is dark and Leo had light-brown hair. But the build is exactly the same. Let Peter wear goggles to mask his face and a dust-coat like Leo’s, let him be seen only by the uncertain light of a street-lamp as he sweeps past…
“From the first moment I saw the real Leo’s dead body beside the ruin of his car, there were some troublesome features in believing what we were meant to believe. Leo’s dust-coat was quite clean, which it couldn’t have been if he’d driven out from town; my own clothes were soaked with dust. As I walked past the Cadillac drawn up behind the wrecked Mercer, I did notice a big lap-robe in the tonneau.
“I walked towards Leo’s body, starting to bend down. The chauffeur, who was already kneeling there, said, ‘Don’t touch him!’ If I had tried to touch him, either the chauffeur or Peter, or both, would have got in my way and prevented it. They had only to keep anybody from touching him until the autopsy people took over afterwards, and the real time of his death could never be determined. The question wouldn’t even be asked, because we all thought we knew.”
“You say ‘they’ had only to do this or that,” cried a not-quite-stammering Jill. “When the truth dawned on you, didn’t it make you suspicious of Peter and the chauffeur?”
“Not when I realized, at the Western Union place on Thursday, that Alec Laird must be the murderer, and that any accomplices after the crime were only unwitting accomplices. Leo was shot in Alec Laird’s office, his body conveyed downstairs, by private elevator, and transported under a lap-robe in the tonneau of the Cadillac to the place where the others set the scene outside Lance Chadwick’s house.
“I will mention only one more point, and let Lieutenant Trowbridge fill in the few remaining details from statements made by Peter Laird and Raoul Dupont.
“Leo phoned Alec Laird at five in the afternoon; Alec Laird admitted that much, since he had no idea where Leo might have been phoning from, and some outsider might be able to enlighten the police. Leo wasn’t looking for me. He told Alec that Alec had damned well better stay at the office; Leo would be coming to see him.
“If Alec hadn’t already guessed Leo knew the Voice’s identity, he could be sure by that time. And he waited; he waited a long time. Leo didn’t leave his club, well out in the Garden District, until about a quarter to
six. Even then he didn’t drive straight to the Sentinel. He cruised and cruised, still making up his mind. It was well past seven o’clock, and Alec Laird had already prepared an alibi in case he had to commit murder, when Leo left his Mercer in the alley beside the building and took the private elevator to the top floor.
“What happened when those two first confronted each other? We shall never learn; both of them are dead. But, since there’s such a great deal we do know about later events, Lieutenant Trowbridge had better cross the t’s from the statements made by Alec Laird’s unwitting accomplices.”
“How could they have been ‘unwitting’ accomplices?” asked Constance.
“You’ll see. Lieutenant?”
With a great flourish Honest Zack whipped out his notebook; but, as usual, he refrained from consulting it.
“This part,” he explained, “even Franz Josef couldn’t have reasoned out from the evidence; we didn’t have it as evidence. Young Pete and that chauffeur never did tell me the truth until after Alec was dead, and they had to speak up to save their own necks.
“All right! At seven-thirty Wednesday night, as we’ve heard, Sylvia Laird phoned Pete and told him that string of whoppers her husband told her, ’specially about Mr. Shepley touring bars and talking suicide. She made it convincing, because she believed it; most people believed Alec. Pete believed it, too; his great hero, it seemed, might do something desperate.
“So he hung around close to the phone afterwards, in case there should be news. There was news. Shortly before eight—Pete’s mother hadn’t yet called him to dinner—Alec Laird himself phoned from the Sentinel.
“‘Have you heard anything about Leo?’ asks Pete. ‘You bet I’ve heard something about Leo,’ says Alec, or fancier words to that effect. ‘He’s here now; he’s in my office, and I’m calling from the extension in the next room. He’s in a pretty bad state; seems intent on doing himself in.’ See what Alec was leading up to?
“‘I’ve been trying to argue him out of it,’ Alec continues. ‘But he’s a big man, and strong; I don’t know what to do if he gets violent. Look!’ says Alec. ‘I know you can’t come here; your mother won’t let you skip dinner. But that chauffeur of yours is a pretty husky lad, too. Why not send him in with the car? Tell him to wait in the alley beside the building; he can lend a hand if I need help.’
“So Pete sent Raoul in the Cadillac with those instructions. Until nine-thirty Pete stayed chained to his mother’s dinner-table. Shortly after that, when the old lady had gone upstairs and was out of the way, Pete phoned Alec.
“‘Leo?’ says he. ‘He’s done it!’ says Alec. ‘About nine o’clock, before I could call for help or make a move of any kind, he pulled a gun out of his own pocket and shot himself.’
“A while ago Franz Josef asked what happened when Mr. Shepley and Alec Laird first confronted each other. To judge by evidence we found after Alec’s death—aside from what Pete and Raoul told us, I mean—you can see what happened during the whole interval.
“Mr. Shepley was going to have this out with the Voice. His aunt didn’t think he took his own .38 revolver with him, which only means she didn’t see it. He took the gun, all right! He didn’t mean to use it, naturally. He’d just show it to the damn Voice to prove he meant business. That was his mistake.
“At first, I reckon, Alec denied everything. When Mr. Shepley wasn’t having any, he tried to justify himself with all kinds of fancy words. That didn’t work either. Alec owned a .38 of his own; kept it in a drawer of that desk in the museum, along with a box of cartridges. He could always use that. And he had to use something.
“Things got stormier and stormier. If Mr. Shepley had taken a long time about making up his mind, Alec seemed to take a long time about doing a killing he knew he had to do sooner or later. But it wasn’t that way, not really. Alec couldn’t take chances; he had to be sure there was nobody left on the top floor, who might walk in on him by accident.
“Then he got his opportunity. When Mr. Shepley thought of violence, he never associated it with guns. Like most of these big athletes, he’d think of using his fists. And he got careless.
“After showing the gun to Alec, he put it down on a table or a desk and more or less forgot it. While he paced the floor, as they say he always did, he wouldn’t pay too much attention; he didn’t see Alec slide up against the table and hide that gun behind Alec’s back. The man who was soon to be a victim sat down again. When the lid blew off, it was because…didn’t you make a suggestion, Franz Josef?”
Jim nodded.
“Leo, who never thought this hypocrite was dangerous except in making malicious phone calls, must have said something like, ‘I’ve had enough of this! I’m driving straight out to Sunnington Hall; Aunt Mathilde’s going to hear the whole thing.’”
“And the murderer, who had no choice now,” supplied Honest Zack, “yanked up the victim’s own gun and let him have it through the side of the head.
“It didn’t take him long to work out a new plan. He needed help with the new scheme, but he knew very well he could get help. At nine-thirty he phoned Franz Josef and arranged to have a witness waiting at the gate out here. That was done in short order; he had the rest of the hocus-pocus ready when Pete’s call came through soon afterwards.
“‘Yes, Pete, Leo shot himself,’ says Alec. ‘But we don’t want scandal, do we? You don’t want it known your hero went crazy and took his own life? All right! If you’ll help out a little, and take a very small risk, too, we’ll turn this into a murder. Nobody’ll be arrested for the murder; nobody’ll even be blamed for it; your hero had no enemies, and there isn’t any murder.’
“Would that reckless young fellow help out? You bet he would! Raoul was waiting downstairs in the Cadillac, with instructions to obey Alec in everything. And Alec told Pete just what to do. Pete was to leave Sunnington Hall and jog along the road to the gate at Mr. Lance Chadwick’s house, where Alec and Raoul would join him, and Pete would hear the rest of the scheme.
“Alec can drive a car, I’ve since learned, though he don’t own one and seldom does drive. He keeps a carriage and horses; he’d sent ’em home that night, ordering the coachman to keep his mouth shut or see trouble.
“There were two cars down in the alley, the Cadillac and Mr. Shepley’s Raceabout. With a box of .38 cartridges in his desk, Alec slipped a new bullet into the murder gun as replacement for the one he’d fired.
“Alec and Raoul, who’s an old-fashioned loyal retainer and cooperated all the way, got Mr. Shepley’s body downstairs. They put it in the back of the Cadillac, covered with a lap-robe. Alec drove the Cadillac, an easier job, while Raoul, the professional, drove the trickier Raceabout. Alec, Raoul, and Pete met outside Lance Chadwick’s house, where Alec explained.
“If Pete wore goggles and a dust-coat, at the wheel of the Mercer he’d be taken for Mr. Shepley as sure as you’re born. They did one other thing, which no watcher in the house overlooked. While Alec gave ’em the details of his plan, they backed both cars into the drive so they wouldn’t be seen when Franz Josef drove past.
“‘Here’s the gun, fully loaded again; no shot seems to have been fired,’ says Alec. ‘You, Pete, are to imitate Leo’s drivin’ style; you’re known as a crazy driver anyway. Go tearing down the road, up the drive, and into the way-through. Just before you slam the car into the locked double doors, lean out and fire a shot at some place where they won’t soon notice the bullet-hole. Then drop the gun on the floor, with one bullet gone. It’ll seem like murder, but nobody’ll be blamed. Have you got the nerve to do all that?’
“Yes, you can bet Pete had the nerve! He’d lean down, he said, and fire the bullet into the wall under the workbench on the right, where there’s always deep shadow night or day. But Pete had one little improvement he didn’t mention.
“After Franz Josef and this young lady had driven past, they were ready. Raoul drove the Cadillac to the gate of Sunnington Hall, where it waited the right moment to chase the other
car. Pete, disguised at the wheel of the Mercer…”
“Wait!” cried Jill. “When the Mercer went past Jim and me, it was Peter Laird we saw? If Raoul drove the Cadillac, who was the other person in it?”
“You didn’t see another ‘person’ at all, miss. What you saw was Mr. Shepley’s dead body. The other person didn’t move, did he, except as the car moved?
“After the smash, remember, Franz Josef didn’t exactly rush into that way-through. They had time to put the body on the floor beside the wrecked car. Then came the ‘improvement’ Pete was thinking about. He didn’t get a bump or a scratch when he slammed into the doors; he’d had smashes before. But he didn’t drop the gun on the floor, either; he deliberately stuck it in his own pocket.
“This was going to be murder, no doubt at all! So first Pete pretended he thought it was suicide, all the time believing it was suicide. Then he could ‘discover’ there was no gun, so it had to be murder. None of ’em realized they’d created an impossible situation. And Pete put on a pretty good show.”
“Well,” volunteered Clay, “his mother said Pete could be quite a competent actor when he had to be. What happened to Alec, while this was going on?”
“There was no car for the master-mind. He just walked back towards town, where he picked up the cab that took him home. Get it all now?”
“Not entirely. Jim’s suggested that this second plan of Alec’s was somehow intended to implicate me…”
“He couldn’t be sure it would, Mr. Blake; he thought it might. He knew you were here on Wednesday night. Pete Laird knew ‘Yvonne Brissard’ was away from home, so Alec probably knew it, too. And he envied you, Mr. Clay Blake. The men like you, the women fall for you…”
“With both Sylvia Laird and Flossie Yates backing him to the hilt, surely he had no reason to complain?”
“Maybe not, sir; but the natural-born criminals of this world don’t see it that way. Anything else you want to know?”
The Ghosts' High Noon Page 26