The Ghosts' High Noon Read online

  It seemed a long haul to Washington. Dusk had gathered, towards the end of it, when the porter came along with a whisk-broom and brushed the cinders off the windowsill on to the right knee of Jim’s trousers. It was almost time for a tip.

  In the great hall at Union Station, another marble temple built after the plan of a Roman bath, he encountered Dice Reynolds of the Weekly. Dice, disgruntled to waspishness at not getting the New Orleans story for himself, handed him about a yard of ticket and the little green slip of the drawing-room reservation. His train would go at a quarter to eleven.

  After leaving his bag at the checkroom, and telephoning to make sure he would find Charley Emerson at home, he emerged from the station into a high, cool emptiness spangled with pale lights. After the din of New York, Washington always seemed lethargic and slow-moving, little more than a sleepy Southern town.

  Charley Emerson lived in the Congressional Apartments, at the corner of East Capitol Street diagonally across from the Congressional Library, where Charley in retirement indulged his twin hobbies of old books and toy trains. A cab took Jim there in short order, through streets of genteel boarding houses on the edge of near-slums.

  Dusk was deepening, though a red gash still lay along the sky. The burnished dome of the Congressional Library had a gold gleam against night as Jim entered the smallish red-brick apartment-house, whose front windows faced south between the Library and East Capitol Park.

  Charley Emerson, a wiry little terrier of a man with scruffy patches of gray-black hair and the scar of an old burn above his left ear, admitted him to a comfortable apartment on the second floor. In the living-room, lighted by a table lamp with a shade of mosaic glass in half a dozen colors, one wall seemed to be composed entirely of books. Against the opposite wall stood a long trestle-table, bearing the maze of tracks, signals, bridges, tunnels, and stations for a sleek little train powered by two dry-cell batteries attached to a transformer.

  According to the occasion Charley could be either shatteringly frank or smooth with the noncommittal suavity of a trained diplomat. Tonight, it seemed, he had decided to be frank.

  “All right!” he exclaimed, sighting along an extended forefinger. “You weren’t very informative on the phone, but you’ve whetted my curiosity. Tell me what you want to know and I’ll tell you what you’ll have to know, as far as I’m sure I know it myself. First, though, do you mind an early dinner?”

  “On the contrary, I’ve been looking forward to one. I had so rushed a morning that there was no time for lunch, and I’m ravenous.”

  “In the basement of this place there’s a bar and grill to which I’ll invite you presently. It’s quite respectable; you could take your Aunt Nelly there. And the steaks aren’t half bad. Now sit down and fire away.”

  Jim sat down and told his story, omitting only the episode of Jill Matthews.

  Charley bent over the trestle-table, his hand on the switch of the transformer. The little train jerked forward suddenly, then whirred and clicked at a steady pace as Charley adjusted the speed. Lighting a Wheeling stogy (two for a nickel), he dropped into an easy chair beside the table and puffed in silence until Jim had finished.

  “When people ask me about New Orleans,” Charley remarked, “what seems to interest them most is the famous legalized red-light district known as Storyville: no less than thirty-eight blocks of the Vieux Carré around North Basin Street, containing everything from palatial houses where evening dress is obligatory to a twenty-five-cent crib in an alley. And it works, you know! Allowing brothels to operate, always provided they’re run on the level and don’t disturb the peace, is the one sane political move which…”

  “I’m not concerned with Storyville, Charley. What’s the inside information on Clay Blake?”

  “Well…”

  “Let’s have it, please. If somebody’s out to get him…”

  Charley, face twisted up and an intent look in his eye, meditatively tapped ashes on the carpet.

  “Clay’s all right, Jim. He’s as able a lawyer as we’ve got and a damn good fellow, though a little too intellectual for my taste. You’re intelligent, Jim; you’re not intellectual, thank God. Clay is intellectual. Now don’t get the wrong idea! He’s no Christer or holier-than-thou, as you’ll understand very soon.

  “He defeated Happy Chadwick for nomination in the Democratic primary, when most people thought Happy would have a walkover. Clay’s just popular, that’s all. The men like him; the women love him. The women may not be able to vote, but the hand that rocks the cradle still has a hell of a pull. And he’s had the backing of two good friends. One of these friends is a man about town called Leo Shepley…”

  Jim stared at him.

  “Haven’t I ever mentioned it, Charley? I know Leo Shepley very well, or I used to know him well in days gone by. But I shouldn’t have taken him for a political type.”

  “He’s not a political type. Still! Leo was the great college football star twelve or fifteen years ago, as I hardly have to remind you. Odd as it may seem, that still counts. He’s got no very good reputation in polite circles, and he tears around in that red Mercer Raceabout until they wonder why he hasn’t broken his fool neck. But they’ll find excuses for him whatever he does. Clay’s other friend…are you following me?”

  “Intently.”

  “Clay’s other friend is Alec Laird, now high khan of my old paper, the Sentinel.”

  “Just a minute, Charley! Colonel Harvey mentioned Alec Laird, but said he was so old that…”

  “Easy, Jim! Your good colonel meant Alec senior, who founded the Sentinel and still owns it. I mean Alec’s son, always called young Alec though he must be at least forty. Oh, these newspaper empires! Remember the two Gordon Bennetts, father and son, successive proprietors of the New York Herald?”

  “Well?”

  “Gordon Bennett the elder, dead these forty years, minded his shop and paid strict attention to the till. Whereas Gordon Bennett the younger was (and still is, to some limited extent) a real hellion.” Charley writhed as though in torture. “Sweet, suffering Jesus!”

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “As far as the Lairds are concerned, that situation is exactly reversed. In his younger days, by all accounts, Alec the elder showed distinct tendencies towards skittishness. That doesn’t go for Alec junior, who’s as responsible a citizen as you’d want to pass the collection plate in church. Don’t get him wrong either. Some say he’s too fond of power; I worked for him and never noticed it. He may be a sobersides and an unredeemed puritan, but you can depend on Alec when you need somebody in your corner.

  “Another branch of the Laird family—Peter Laird, young Alec’s cousin, and the elderly dowager they call Madam Ironface—may be said to have a bearing on the present position of Clay Blake. It’s Clay Blake we’re concerned with, isn’t it? James Claiborne Blake: no relation to you, as I’d already ascertained for myself, but candidate for Congress and virtually certain to be elected. It’s time I mentioned what may well be the most important point about Clay at this moment. It’s time I mentioned the woman.”

  “What woman?”

  “The woman in his life,” said Charley. “Does the name Yvonne Brissard mean anything to you?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  Charley dropped the stogy into a china cuspidor and sat forward.

  “Originally Yvonne was a New Orleans girl, born of good bourgeois Creole stock. When she was six or seven years old—some time ago; she’s past thirty now—her parents took her abroad, to a dull provincial city in France. But Yvonne herself didn’t stay dull or provincial. She grew up into a smashing beauty: dark hair, melting eyes, all the other appurtenances, too. When she was eighteen she cut loose from her family and went to Paris. To say she rang the bell there would be putting it mildly. In her chosen profession…”

  “As a prostitute?”

  “We don’t call it that, Jim.”

  “Then what do we call it?”

  “Hell�
��s fire, man, do I need to stress the difference between the prostitute and the courtesan?”

  “There’s difference in degree, of course.”

  “That’s putting it mildly, too. Your prostitute is nothing at all. Your courtesan, particularly in the moneyed circles of Europe, achieves eminence and a kind of left-handed respectability. Her furs, her diamonds, her bank account provide armor against clubs or poisoned darts. Almost every woman secretly envies her as she rolls past in her own carriage or car. She is above this world. In Paris, in Vienna, even in London…

  “Jim, our Yvonne has had a really spectacular career. Her conquests have included a French cabinet minister, a British industrialist, even some sprig of minor royalty from the Balkans. And she kept ’em all dizzy. Her secret, it's claimed, is that she combines complete wantonness with an outwardly modest and well-mannered air that adds zest to the business.

  “Now hear the next-to-latest development. In spring of this year—furs, diamonds, bank account and all—Yvonne Brissard returned from Europe for an extended stay in the city where she was born.”

  “To conquer New Orleans, too?”

  “Oh, no. She wasn’t ‘received,’ as the saying is, and didn’t expect to be received. On the other hand, she did rent one of those fine mansions beside Bayou St. John, a district picturesque, rather mysterious, and still unspoiled even in this year 1912. How she persuaded the owner of that particular house to accept her as a tenant is something of a mystery in itself. But that’s not the point. The point is that she met Clay Blake. Whereupon these two, the Creole siren and the Anglo-Saxon lawyer of excellent family but no particular wealth, fell for each other like a ton of bricks. Their affair, though discreetly conducted, has been sizzling with bright flames ever since.”

  Jim sat up straight.

  “Look here, Charley! Are you suggesting, is anybody suggesting, that Yvonne Brissard is part of the alleged plot against my namesake? That somebody may be using the woman to ruin him?”

  “To ruin him? In New Orleans? Jim, are you bughouse?”

  “I’m only asking…”

  The rattle of the toy train endlessly circling had become almost a hypnosis. It stopped suddenly, leaving a void, as Charley stood up and touched the switch of the transformer.

  “Food!” he proclaimed in a ringing voice. “You say you’re starving; I know I am. That’s enough for a first installment; not one more word until we’ve put ourselves outside some grub! Come along downstairs.”

  “But you haven’t explained…”

  “Nor will I, at the moment.” Charley adjusted his cuffs. “Not one more word, I say, until the inner man can relax, too. Now stir your stumps and come along!”

  What Charley had called the basement at the Congressional Apartments was in fact a semi-basement only a few feet, below the level of the street. Cramped and raftered, it had a faint alcoholic dampness to match its gloom. Entering from the back, they found the bar parallel to the left-hand wall and, on their right, wooden booths enclosing tables, each table with a dim little pink-shaded lamp. Towards the front, beyond the glass door at the end of this cavern, five or six stone steps led up to street level. An autumn wind swirled dead leaves outside.

  They were the only customers in the place. Ensconced in a booth opposite Charley, and facing forward, Jim had the fidgets. If his host’s apartment had been comfortable and commonplace, for some reason the atmosphere here seemed alien, furtive, even a trifle sinister.

  Several times, as their meal progressed, he found his glance straying towards the front door. More than once he thought he saw a shadow stir on the glass, as of some other customer descending. It was only an impression from the corner of the eye, probably hallucinatory; the door never opened.

  But he had small cause for complaint. Having ordered steaks done rare, they got steaks done rare. Jim drank beer; Charley drank Bourbon and water. Finally they sat back, replete, Charley lighting a stogy and Jim a cigarette, as the dispirited waiter brought coffee. Both pondered for some time. It was Charley who broke the silence.

  “Jim, what are you thinking?”

  “‘Lo, she that was the world’s delight…’”

  “I wish you wouldn’t quote Swinburne so early in the evening. The world’s delight, eh? Yvonne Brissard?”

  “As a matter of fact, my thought bore no reference to Yvonne Brissard. All the same! If your interdict on questions is now lifted…”

  “It’s lifted, Jim. Anything goes.”

  “You keep in fairly close touch with your native city, I know. Have you heard the report of Clay Blake as potential victim of some dirty work?”

  “I’ve heard the report, yes. However, since no dirty work has been attempted…”

  “You won’t even entertain the possibility that his affair with Yvonne Brissard may be used against him?”

  “I deny the allegation and spurn the allegator.” Charley puffed out his cheeks as though blowing away a feather. “Used against him in New Orleans, for Pete’s sake?”

  “His constituents aren’t exactly cheering for it, are they?”

  “Well, they’re not horror-struck either. It just doesn’t matter, that’s all. Provided he behaves with reasonable discretion in public, which is what he’s been doing, his constituents don’t care how often he goes to bed with a favored wench. Would you care for proof?”

  “We’re not taking the case to court, Charley. At the same time…”

  “If any evilly disposed people had wanted to use Yvonne against him, they’d have done it when he was running against Happy Chadwick in the primary. The affair was well under way at that time: everybody knew it, everybody talked about it. And there wasn’t a ripple. As I think I told you, he beat Happy Chadwick hands down.”

  “Who’s Happy Chadwick?”

  “Happy Chadwick (Raymond P. Chadwick to you) is another lawyer, a middle-aged-to-elderly family man who keeps smiling whatever happens. He’s got a lot of influence at Baton Rouge and in other places, too. But here’s more irony, as with the two Lairds of the Sentinel. Clay Blake, our young intellectual, is all for conservatism and the status quo. It’s mature Happy Chadwick who’s the roaring progressive, afire to bust capitalists and let women vote. Also, as far as anybody knows, Happy’s an honest man, too.”

  Jim groped for common sense.

  “Let’s sum up, shall we?” he suggested. “As an experienced observer, then, you’ve come to the conclusion there’s nothing in it? That this whole tale about somebody’s plot is nothing but a canard and a mare’s-nest?”

  “No, Jim, no! I don’t say that at all!”

  Charley Emerson had become desperately serious. His left eyelid was twitching, and shaky fingers all but upset his coffee-cup.

  “Now listen, Jim. Colonel Harvey seems to have intimated you may be sitting on dynamite. It may be only a damp firecracker. Or it may be dynamite and worse than dynamite; it may be this murderous new stuff called TNT.

  “Listen carefully, I say! Just in case there’s a big story behind everything, who’d be interested in preventing you from getting it? Interested enough, for instance, to follow you from New York?”

  “Follow me from…Holy cats, Charley, who’s crazy now? Who’d follow me from New York? And why do you say that anyway?”

  “Because, just outside the front door of this place…”

  “Damnit, how do you know what’s outside? You can’t even see the door; you’re sitting with your back to it.”

  “Yes; but I can see a fair sideways reflection in the mirror behind the bar. There’s somebody hanging around outside. He’s been there for some time; he ducks back every time you look in that direction.

  “I’m a patient man, James; I can put up with practically anything. But I don’t like my friends being spied on in my own bailiwick. And I want to know…”

  Charley’s stogy dropped on the table. Bouncing to his feet like an india-rubber cat, he spun round, charged at the door, and flung it open.

  3

  SIL
ENCE.

  Silence, that is, except for a scurry of dead leaves and the thump of Charley’s footfalls as he bounced up the steps to the pavement.

  Jim, rising to follow after he had balanced the burning stogy on the edge of an ashtray, got no farther than the open door. There he met Charley descending again.

  The rising wind kept leaves a-dance. One of Washington’s small and unsteady streetcars, whose lights would flicker off and then on again whenever the car rounded a curve, jolted past on its way to Lincoln Park. Charley closed the glass door.

  “Anything wrong, Mr. Emerson?” asked the dispirited waiter. “It kinda looked as if—”

  “No, Mike; not a thing wrong! I’m getting fanciful in my old age, that’s all.”

  The waiter faded away; the bartender appeared sound asleep. Charley lowered his voice as he and Jim sat down again.

  “There was somebody, though,” he confided with great intensity. “It’s true I’m getting old and my legs aren’t what they were, or I’d have chased him as I once chased Emile the Slasher from upper Esplanade Avenue to a grog-shop by the French Market. Never mind! This jasper’s been spying on you, Jim, though he can’t have got much of an earful through that door.”

  “Easy, Charley! Probably it was only a loafer wondering if he could cadge something from the free-lunch counter. Even granted the moonstruck notion of spying, need it necessarily have been spying on me? It could just as well be spying on you.”

  “A retired old hack like C. Emerson? Not on your tintype, Jamie! He was interested in you; he had his eye on you, and took good care you didn’t get a real look at him.”

  “Well, if you got a look at him, let’s have a description of the fellow.”

  “I didn’t get a real look at him either, and you know it! He was only a sideways reflection, a kind of shadow against the street-light out there. But I don’t like this; I don’t like it a little bit. Jim, do you carry a gun?”

  “Good God, no! What would I be doing with a gun?”

  “It might not be such a bad idea, considering the company you may be keeping in the next few days.”