The sailcloth shroud

by Charles Williams

  Six thousand profit wouldn’t be bad for less than two months’ work and a little calculated risk. It would mean new batteries and new generator for the Orion. A leather lounge and teak table in the saloon. . . . I was down on deck now. I stowed the bosun’s chair and began sanding the boom.

  “Mr. Rogers!”

  I glanced up. It was the watchman, calling to me from the end of the pier, and I noted with surprise it was the four-to-midnight man, Otto Johns. I’d been oblivious of the passage of time.

  “Telephone,” he called. “Long distance from New York.”

  4

  New York? Must be a mistake, I thought as I went up the pier. I didn’t know anybody there who would be trying to phone me. The watchman’s shack was just inside the gate, with a door and a wide window facing the driveway. Johns set the instrument on the window counter. “Here you go.”

  I picked it up. “Hello. Rogers speaking.”

  It was a woman’s voice. “Is this the Mr. Stuart Rogers who owns the yacht Topaz?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Good.” There was evident relief in her voice. Then she went on softly, “Mr. Rogers, I’m worried. I haven’t heard from him yet.”

  “From whom?” I asked blankly.

  “Oh,” she replied. “I am sorry. It’s just that I’m so upset. This is Paula Stafford.”

  It was evident from the way she said it the name was supposed to explain everything. “I don’t understand,” I said. “What is it you want?”

  “He did tell you about me, didn’t he?”

  I sighed. “Miss Stafford—or Mrs. Stafford—I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who told me about you?”

  “You’re being unnecessarily cautious, Mr. Rogers. I assure you I’m Paula Stafford. It must have been at least two weeks now, and I still have no word from him. I don’t like it at all. Do you think something could have gone wrong?”

  “Let’s go back and start over,” I suggested. “My name is Stuart Rogers, age thirty-two, male, single, charter yacht captain—”

  “Will you please—” she snapped. Then she paused, apparently restraining herself, and went on more calmly. “All right, perhaps you’re right not to take chances without some proof. Fortunately, I’ve already made plane reservations. I’ll arrive at two-twenty a.m., and will be at the Warwick Hotel. Will you please meet me there as soon as I check in? It’s vitally important.” She hung up.

  I shrugged, replaced the instrument, and lighted a cigarette. There was a weird one.

  “Some nut?” Johns asked. He was a gaunt, white-haired man with ice-blue eyes. He leaned on the window shelf and began stoking a caked and smelly pipe. “I got a son-in-law that’s a cop, and he says you get your name in the paper you’re pestered with all kindsa screwballs.”

  “Probably a drunk,” I replied.

  “Too bad about that Keefer fella,” Johns went on. “Did I tell you he was here Iookin’ for you the other night?”

  I glanced up quickly. “He was? When was this?”

  “Hmmm. Same night they say he was killed. That’d be Thursday. I reckon I must have forgot to tell you because when you come in Ralph’d just relieved me and we was shootin’ the breeze.”

  “What time was he here?”

  “About seven, seven-thirty. Wasn’t long after you went out.”

  I frowned. It was odd that Blackie hadn’t mentioned it when I ran into him at the Domino. “You’re sure it was Keefer?”

  “That’s the name he said. Dark-haired kind of fella. Said he was the one that sailed up from Panama with you. I told him you’d gone uptown to a movie and wouldn’t be back till around eleven.”

  “Was he in a car?” I asked. “And was there a girl with him?”

  Johns shook his head. “He was by hisself. And I didn’t see no car; far as I know he was afoot. I reckon he’d had a couple snorts, because he got pretty hot under the collar when I wouldn’t let him go aboard the boat. He told me again about bein’ a friend of yours and comin’ up from Panama on it, and I said it didn’t make no difference to me if he’d helped you sail it here from Omaha, Nebraska. Long as he wasn’t in the crew no more he wasn’t goin’ aboard without you was with him.”

  “What did he want?” I asked. “Did he say?”

  “Said he forgot his razor when he was paid off. I told him he’d have to see you about that. He left, and didn’t come back.”

  “Oh,” I said. “The companion hatch was locked; he couldn’t have got aboard anyway. He should have known that.”

  I went back aboard the Topaz. It was after six now; I might as well knock off for the day. I walked over to the washroom, showered, shaved, and dressed in clean slacks and a fresh sport shirt. Back in the cabin, as I was putting away my shaving gear, I thought of Keefer. Odd, with all that money he had, that he would come clear back out here just to pick up the cheap shaving kit he’d bought in Panama. I paused. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t even seen it since Keefer had left. Was it just an excuse to get aboard? Maybe the man was a thief. I pulled open the drawer under the bunk Keefer had occupied. There was no razor in it. Why, the dirty . . . Well, don’t go off half-cocked, I thought; make sure it’s not aboard. I stepped into the head and pulled open the tiny medicine cabinet above the basin. There it was, the styrene case containing a safety razor and a pack of blades. My apologies, Blackie.

  I went up the companion ladder. The deck now lay in the lengthening shadows of the buildings ashore, and with a slight breeze blowing up bay from the Gulf it was a little cooler. I sat down in the cockpit, took out a cigarette, and then paused just as I started to flip the lighter.

  Paula.

  Paula Stafford.

  Was there something familiar about the name? Hadn’t I heard it before, somewhere? Oh, it was probably just imagination. I dropped the lighter back in my pocket, and inhaled deeply of the smoke, but the nagging idea persisted. Maybe Keefer had mentioned her sometime during the trip. Or Baxter.

  Baxter . . . For some reason I was conscious again of that strange sensation of unease I had felt there in the office of the FBI. Merely by turning my head I could look along the port side of the deck, between mizzen and main, where I had stood that day with head bared to the brazen heat of the sun and watched the body as it faded slowly and disappeared, falling silently into the depths and the crushing pressures and eternal darkness two miles below. It was the awful finality of it—the fact that if the FBI couldn’t find out something about him, pick up his trail somewhere, they might never know who he was. There’d never be a second chance. No fingerprints, no photograph, no possibility of a better description, nothing. He was gone, forever, without leaving a trace. Was that it? Was it going to bother me the rest of my life—the fact that I had failed to bring the body ashore where it might have been identified?

  Oh, hell, I thought angrily, you’re just being morbid. You did everything humanly possible. Except remove the stomach; that would have helped, but you chickened out. So you did like the man; that’s no excuse. It’s done. But it wouldn’t have changed anything in the long run. You were still three hundred miles from the Canal. And in that heat, trying to stretch it any longer would have been more than just unpleasant; it could have become dangerous. Burial was a practical necessity long before it became a ritual.

  But there must be some clue. We’d been together for four days, and in that length of time even a man as uncommunicative as Baxter would have said something that would provide a lead as to where he was from. Think back. What was it Soames had said about association? Right here within this span of forty feet was where it had all taken place. Start at the beginning, with the first time you ever saw Baxter, and go over every minute.

  I stopped. Just why was it necessary? Or rather, why did I feel it was? Why this subconscious fear that they weren’t going to find anybody in Panama who knew Baxter? The man said he’d worked there. If he had, the FBI would run him down in a day. Was it merely because the San Francisco address had proved a dead en
d? No, there must be more. . . .

  * * *

  It had rained during the afternoon, a slashing tropical downpour that drummed along the deck and pocked the surface of the water like hail, but it was clear now, and the hot stars of the southern latitudes were ablaze across the sky. The Topaz was moored stern-to at a low wooden wharf with her anchor out ahead, shadowy in the faint illumination from a lamp a half block away where the row of palms along the street stirred and rustled in the breeze blowing in from the Caribbean.

  It was eight p.m. Keefer had gone off to the nearest bar with two or three dollars he had left from the twenty I’d advanced him. I went below to catalogue and stow the charts I had bought. I switched on the overhead light and stood for a moment at the foot of the companion ladder, looking forward. She was all right. She had a good interior layout, and the six-foot-two-inch headroom was adequate.

  The small bottled-gas stove and stainless-steel sink of the galley were on the port side aft, with the wooden refrigerator below and stowage above. To starboard was a settee. Above it was the RDF and radiotelephone, and a chart table that folded back when not in use. Just forward of this area were two permanent bunks, and beyond them a locker to port and the small enclosed head to starboard. These, and the curtain between them, formed a passage going into the forward compartment, which was narrower and contained two additional bunks.

  The charts were in a roll on the settee. I cut the cord binding them, and pulled down the chart table. Switching on the light above it, I began checking them off against my list, rolling them individually, and stowing them in the rack overhead. It was hot and very still here below, and sweat dripped off my face. I mopped at it, thinking gratefully that tomorrow we would be at sea.

  I had a Hydrographic Office general chart of the Caribbean spread out on the table and was lighting a cigarette when a voice called out quietly from ashore, “Ahoy, aboard the Topaz.”

  I stuck my head out the companion hatch. The shadowy figure on the wharf was tall but indistinct in the faint light, and I couldn’t see the face. But he sounded American, and judging from the way he’d hailed he could be off one of the other yachts. “Come on aboard,” I invited.

  I stepped back, and the man came into view down the companion ladder—heavy brogues first, and then long legs in gray flannel slacks, and at last a brown tweed jacket. It was an odd way to be dressed in Panama, I thought, where everybody wore white and nothing heavier than linen. The man’s face appeared, and he stood at the foot of the ladder with his head inclined slightly because of his height. It was a slender, well-made face, middle-aged but not sagging or deeply lined, with the stamp of quietness and intelligence and good manners on it. The eyes were brown. He was bareheaded, and the short-cropped brown hair was graying.

  “Mr. Rogers?” he asked politely.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “My name is Baxter. Wendell Baxter.”

  We shook hands. “Welcome aboard,” I said. “How about some coffee?”

  “Thank you, no.” Baxter moved slightly to one side of the companion ladder, but remained standing. “I’ll get right to the point, Mr. Rogers. I heard you were looking for a hand to take her north.”

  I was surprised, but concealed it. Baxter had neither the appearance nor the bearing of one who would be looking for a job as a paid deckhand. College students, yes; but this man must be around fifty. “Well, I’ve already got one man,” I said.

  “I see. Then you didn’t consider taking two? I mean, to cut the watches.”

  “Watch-and-watch does get pretty old,” I agreed. “And I certainly wouldn’t mind having two. You’ve had experience?”

  “Yes.”

  “Offshore? The Caribbean can get pretty lumpy for a forty-foot yawl.”

  Baxter had been looking at the chart. He glanced up quickly, but the brown eyes were merely polite. “Yawl?”

  I grinned. “I’ve had two applicants who called her a schooner, and one who wanted to know if I planned to anchor every night.”

  A faint smile touched Baxter’s lips. “I see.”

  “Have you had a chance to look her over?” I asked.

  “Yes. I saw her this morning.”

  “What do you make of her?”

  “This is just a guess, of course, but I’d say she was probably an Alden design, and New England built, possibly less than ten years ago. She seems to have been hauled recently, probably within two months, unless she’s been lying in fresh water. The rigging is in beautiful shape, except that the lower shroud on the port side of the main has some broken strands.”

  I nodded. I already had the wire aboard to replace that shroud in the morning before sailing. Baxter was no farmer. I nodded toward the chart. “What do you think of the course, the way I’ve laid it out?”

  He studied it for a moment. “If the Trades hold, it should be a broad reach most of the way. Once you’re far enough to the north’ard to weather Gracias a Dios, you can probably lay the Yucatán Channel on one course. Do you carry genoa and spinnaker?”

  “No,” I said. “Nothing but the working sails. We’ll probably be twelve days or longer to Southport, and all I can offer you is a hundred for the passage. Are you sure you want to go?”

  “The pay isn’t important,” he replied. “Primarily, I wanted to save the plane fare.”

  “You’re an American citizen, I suppose.”

  “Yes. My home’s in San Francisco. I came down here on a job that didn’t work out, and I’d like to get back as cheaply as possible.”

  “I see,” I said. I had the feeling somehow that behind the quiet demeanor and well-bred reserve Baxter was tense with anxiety, wanting to hear me say yes. Well, why not? The man was obviously experienced, and it would be well worth the extra hundred not to have to stand six-and-six. “It’s a deal, then. Can you be aboard early in the morning? I’d like to get away before ten.”

  He nodded. “I’ll have my gear aboard in less than an hour.”

  He left, and returned in forty-five minutes carrying a single leather suitcase of the two-suiter variety. “Keefer and I are in these bunks,” I said. “Take either of those in the forward compartment. You can stow your bag in the other one.”

  “Thank you. That will do nicely,” he replied. He stowed his gear, removed the tweed jacket, and opened the mushroom ventilator overhead. He came out after a while and sat silently smoking a cigarette while I rated the chronometer with a time signal from WWV.

  “I gather you’ve cruised quite a bit,” I said tentatively.

  “I used to,” he replied.

  “In the Caribbean, and West Indies?”

  “No. I’ve never been down here before.”

  “My normal stamping ground is the Bahamas,” I went on. “That’s wonderful country.”

  “Yes. I understand it is.” The words were uttered with the same grave courtesy, but from the fact that he said nothing further it was obvious he didn’t wish to pursue the discussion.

  Okay, I thought, a little hacked about it; you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. I didn’t like being placed in the position of a gossipy old woman who had to be rebuffed for prying. A moment later, however, I thought better of it and decided I was being unfair. A man who was down on his luck at fifty could quite justifiably not wish to discuss his life story with strangers. Baxter, for all his aloofness, struck me as a man you could like.

  Keefer returned about an hour later. I introduced them. Baxter was polite and reserved. Keefer, cocky with the beer he’d drunk and full of the merchant seaman’s conviction that anybody who normally lived ashore was a farmer, was inclined to be condescending. I said nothing. Blackie was probably in for a few surprises; I had a hunch that Baxter was a better sailor than he ever would be. We all turned in shortly after ten. When I awoke just at dawn, Baxter was already up and dressed. He was standing beside his bunk, just visible past the edge of the curtain, using the side of his suitcase as a desk while he wrote something on a pad of airmail stationery.
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br />   “Why don’t you use the chart table?” I asked.

  He looked around. “Oh. This is all right. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  * * *

  I threw the third cigarette over the side, and stood up and stretched. There was nothing in any of that except the fact that Baxter’s flannels and tweeds were a little out of place in Panama. But maybe he merely hadn’t wanted to spend money for tropical clothes, especially if the job had looked none too permanent.

  It was dusk now, and the glow over the city was hot against the sky. I snapped the padlock on the hatch, and walked up to the gate. Johns looked up from his magazine. “Goin’ out for supper?”

  “Yes. What’s a good air-conditioned restaurant that has a bar?”

  “Try the Golden Pheasant, on Third and San Benito. You want me to call you a cab?”

  I shook my head. “Thanks. I’ll walk over and catch the bus.”

  I crossed the railroad tracks in the gathering darkness and entered the street. The bus stop was one block up and two blocks to the right. It was a district of large warehouses and heavy industry, the streets deserted now and poorly lighted. I turned right at the corner and was halfway up the next block, before a shadowy junkyard piled high with wrecked automobiles, when a car turned into the street behind me, splashing me for an instant with its lights. It swerved to the curb and stopped. “Hey, you,” a voice growled.

  I turned, and looked into the shadowy muzzle of an automatic projecting from the front window. Above it was an impression of a hat brim and a brutal outcropping or jaw. “Get in,” the voice commanded.

  The street was deserted for blocks in each direction. Behind me was the high, impassable fence of the junkyard. I looked at the miles of utter nothing between me and the corner. “All right. The wallet’s in my hip pocket—”