The sailcloth shroud

by Charles Williams

  There were only parts of it I understood. One man was still in Southport, covering that end of it. Paula Stafford was alive, but the police hadn’t been able to question her yet, as far as he knew. But I couldn’t guess what he meant by the “other one.”

  He came back and sat down. I wondered what Bill would do, and how much longer we had.

  “Let’s consider what Reagan would do,” he said. “He knew he could die before he reached the States. You would turn his suitcase over to the US marshal or the police, and the money would be discovered. At first glance, that would seem to be no great hardship, since he wouldn’t need it any longer, but it’s not quite that simple. I’ve made a rather thorough study of Reagan—anybody who steals a half million dollars from me is almost certain to arouse my interest—and he was quite a complex man. He was a thief, but an uncomfortable thief, if you follow me. It was gambling that always got him into trouble. But all that’s beside the point. What I’m getting at is that he loved his daughter very much. He’d made a mess of his life—that is, from his viewpoint—and while he was willing to take the consequences himself, he’d do almost anything to keep from hurting her again.”

  Patricia made a little outcry. Slidell glanced at her indifferently and went on.

  “I’m fairly certain the real reason, or at least one reason, he agreed to go along with us is that he’d been dipping into the till at the Drovers National, as he had at the other bank, and he saw a way to put the money back before they caught up with him. But there was risk in this too, so he decided to take it all and fade.

  “At any rate, if you’re still following me, he was dead, buried, and honest, as far as his daughter was concerned. But if all that money came to light there’d be an investigation, eventually they’d find out who he really was, and she’d have to bury him all over again, this time as one of the most publicized thieves since Dillinger.

  “So he had to do something with it? But what? Throw it overboard? That might seem just a little extreme later on when he arrived in Southport still in good health. Hide it somewhere on the boat? That would be more like it, because then if he arrived all right he merely pulled it out of the hiding place and went on his way. But there are two difficulties; it’d be pretty hard, if not downright impossible, to hide anything permanently on a forty-foot boat, to begin with, and then there was Paula Stafford. She knew he had it, of course, so when it turned up missing she might come out of hiding and jump you about it, which could lead to an investigation, the very thing he was trying to avoid. And there’s no doubt he would much rather she had it anyway. Along with the rest of it. So the chances are he’d try to arrange for her to get it, in case he died, without anyone’s ever knowing he had it aboard. But how? And what went wrong?”

  He was approaching it from a different direction, but he was leading me toward it as inevitably as I’d been headed for it myself. I wondered how near we would get before the machine betrayed me, or before the conscious effort of my holding back was written there in its jagged scrawls for Flowers to see. The things it measured were outside voluntary control.

  His eyes shifted from the machine to my face like those of a big cat, just waiting. “We don’t know how he tried to do it. But what went wrong, obviously, was Keefer. When he had the big one, how long was it from the time it struck until he died?”

  “I guessed it at about twenty minutes,” I said. “Naturally, I wasn’t watching a clock. And it’s not an easy thing to tell, anyway, in spite of the offhand way they do it on television. He could have been dead five or ten minutes before we were sure.” Add all the details possible, I thought, as long as they’re true and don’t really matter.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” he said, with a bleak smile. “Approximately how long was he conscious?”

  “Just the first few minutes. Five at the most.”

  “He didn’t say anything?”

  “No.” Nothing coherent, I started to add, but thought better of it. She was having a bad enough time of it as it was without being told the kind of sounds he made.

  “Was Keefer alone with him at any time?”

  “No,” I said.

  “So he was the one who went to look in the suitcase for medicine?”

  “Yes.”

  Flowers was watching the scrawls with rapt attention, but he had said nothing yet. As long as I concentrated on one question at a time I was all right. But each one was a step, leading up to where the noose was waiting.

  “When did you inventory his things?”

  “The next morning.”

  “And at least half of that time you would have been on deck, at the wheel, while he was below alone?”

  “If you mean could he have gone through Reagan’s suitcase,” I said coldly, “of course he could. And he probably did, since he had four thousand dollars when we arrived in Southport. But he couldn’t have carried twenty-three thousand ashore with him unless it was in five hundred-or thousand-dollar bills. He didn’t have it, anyway, or the police would have found it.”

  “I know that,” he broke in. “But let’s plug all the holes as we go. You docked in Southport Monday afternoon, the sixteenth. Was that at the boatyard?”

  “No,” I said. “We didn’t go alongside a pier at all that day. We anchored at the City Yacht Basin.”

  “Did you go ashore?”

  “I didn’t. Keefer did. He put the bite on me for another twenty-dollar advance and went uptown.”

  “Then he wasn’t entirely stupid. You knew he was broke, so he had sense enough to ask you for money. Could he have been carrying any of it then?”

  “Not much,” I said. “I was below when he washed up and dressed, so he didn’t have it tied around his body anywhere. I saw his wallet when he put the twenty in it. It was empty. He couldn’t have carried much just in his pockets.”

  “You didn’t leave the boat at all?”

  “Only when I rowed him over to the pier in the dinghy. I went over to the phone in the yacht club and called the estimators in a couple of boatyards to have them come look the job over.”

  “What time did Keefer come back?”

  “The next morning, around eight. About half drunk.”

  “He must have had some of the money, then, unless he set a world’s record for milking a twenty. What about that morning?”

  “He shaved and had a cup of coffee, and we went up to the US marshal’s office. He couldn’t have picked up anything aboard the boat because it was only about ten minutes and I was right there all the time. We spent the morning with the marshal and the Coast Guard, and went back to the Yacht Basin about two-thirty p.m. I paid him the rest of his money, he rolled up the two pairs of dungarees, the only clothes he had to carry, and I rowed him over to the pier. He couldn’t have put anything in the dungarees. I wasn’t watching him deliberately, of course; I just happened to be standing there talking to him. He rode off with the truck from Harley’s boatyard. They’d brought me some gasoline so I could get over to the yard; the tanks were dry because we’d used it all trying to get back to Cristobal when we were becalmed. The police say he definitely had three to four thousand with him a half hour later when he checked in at the hotel, so he must have had it in his wallet.”

  “You moved the boat to Harley’s boatyard that afternoon, then? Did you go ashore that night?”

  “No.”

  “Wednesday night?”

  “No,” I said. “Both nights I went up to that Domino place for a bite to eat and was gone a half hour or forty-five minutes at the most, and that was before dark. I had too much work to do for any night life.”

  “You didn’t see Keefer at all during that time?”

  “No,” I said.

  “But you did go ashore Thursday night, and didn’t get back till twelve. Keefer could have gone aboard then.”

  “Past the watchman at the gate?” I said, wondering if would get by with it. “The cabin of the boat was locked, anyway.”

  “With a padlock anybody could open with one r
ap of stale doughnut.”

  “Not without making enough noise to be heard out at he gate,” I said. “That’s the reason your man used bolt-cutters on the hasp.”

  We were skirting dangerously close now, and I had to decide in the next minute or so what I was going to do. Sweat it out, and hope they would hold off until that man in Southport could go check? It would be another seven or eight hours before he’d be able to, because he’d have to wait at least until after it was dark, and even as isolated as this place was they couldn’t hang around forever. And as he had said, we were closing the holes as we went; when we got to the last one, what was left?

  “How many keys were there to that padlock?” he asked.

  “Only one,” I said, “as far as I know.”

  “But there could have been another one around. Padlocks always come with two, and the lock must have been aboard when you bought the boat. Where was the key kept when you were at sea?”

  “In a drawer in the galley. Along with the lock.”

  “So if Keefer wanted to be sure of getting back in later on, he had ten days to practice picking that lock. Or to make an impression of the key so he could have a duplicate made. It wouldn’t take much more than a hundred-and-forty IQ to work that out, would it?”

  “No,” I said.

  “All right. He had the rest of that money hidden somewhere in the cabin so he could pick it up when you weren’t around. You and the yard people were working on the boat during the day, and you didn’t go ashore at night, so he was out of luck for the next two days. Then Thursday night you went uptown to a movie. You’d hardly got out of sight when he showed up at the gate and tried to con the watchman into letting him go aboard. The watchman wouldn’t let him in. So he did the same thing we did, picked up a skiff over at that next dock where all the fishing boats were, and went in the back way.”

  “It’s possible,” I said. “But you’re only guessing.”

  “No. Shaw talked to that girl he was with in the Domino. She said Keefer was supposed to pick her up at eight-thirty. He called and said he might be a little late, and it was almost ten when he finally showed. Now guess where he’d been.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But if he came aboard and got it, what became of it? He picked the girl up at ten, he was with her until I ran into them a little before midnight, and you know what happened to him after that.”

  He smiled coldly. “Those were the last two holes. He didn’t give it to the girl, and we know he didn’t throw it out of the car when Bonner and Shaw ran him to the curb about twenty minutes later and picked him up to ask him about Reagan. Therefore, he never did get it. When he got aboard, it was gone.”

  “Gone?” I asked. “You mean you think I found it?”

  He shook his head. “What equipment was removed from that boat for repairs?”

  “The refrigerator,” I said, and dived for him.

  He’d been watching Flowers, and was already reaching for the gun.

  13

  I was on him before it came clear. His chair went over backward under the two of us. I felt the tug of the wires connecting me to the lie-detector as I came out to the end of their slack, and I heard it crash to the floor behind us, bringing the table with it. Flowers gave a shrill cry, whether of outrage or terror I couldn’t tell, and ran past us toward the door.

  Slidell and I were in a hopeless tangle, still propped against the upended chair as we fought for the gun. He had it out of his pocket now. I grabbed it by the cylinder and barrel with my left hand, forcing it away from me, and tried to hit him with a right, but the wire connected to my arm was fouled somewhere in the mess now and it brought me up short. Then Bonner was standing over us. The blackjack sliced down, missing my head and cutting across my shoulder. I heaved, rolling Slidell over on top of me. For an instant I could see the couch where she had been sitting. She was gone. Thank God, she’d run the second I’d lunged at him. If she had enough lead, she might get away.

  We heaved over once more, with Bonner cutting at me again with the blackjack, and then I saw her. She hadn’t run. She’d just reached the telephone and was lifting it off the cradle and starting to dial. I heard Bonner snarl. Slidell and I rolled again, and I couldn’t see her, but then I heard the sound of the blow and her cry as she fell.

  My arm was free now. I hit Slidell in the face. He grunted, but still held onto the gun, trying to swing it around to get the muzzle against me. I hit him again. His hold on it was weakening. I beat at him with rage and frustration. Wouldn’t he ever let go? Then Bonner was leaning over us, taking the gun out of both our hands. Beyond him I saw Patricia Reagan getting up from the floor, beside the telephone where Bonner had tossed it after he’d pulled the cord out of the wall. She grasped the corner of the desk and reached for something on it. I wanted to scream for her to get out. If she could only understand that if one of us got away they might give it up and run . . .

  Just as he got the gun away from us she came up behind him swinging the 35-mm camera by its strap. It caught him just above the ear and he grunted and fell to his knees. The gun slid out of his fingers. I grabbed it, and then Slidell had it by the muzzle.

  “Run!” I yelled at her. “Get away! The police!”

  She understood then. She wheeled and ran out the front door.

  Slidell raged at Bonner. “Go get her!”

  Bonner shook his head like a fighter who’s just taken a nine count, pushed to his feet, and looked about the room. He rubbed a hand across his face and ran toward the back door.

  “The front!” Slidell screamed. He tore at the gun and tried to knee me in the groin. I slid sidewise away from him, avoiding it, and hit him high on the side of the face. Jagged slivers of pain went up my arm. Bonner turned and ran out the front door. I jerked on the gun, and this time I broke Slidell’s grip. I rolled away from him and climbed to my feet. My knees trembled. I was sobbing for breath, and the whole room was turning. When the front door came by I lunged for it. But the wreckage of the lie-detector was still fast to my right arm; it spun me around and threw me off balance just as Slidell scrambled up and hit me at the waist with a hard-driving tackle. We fell across the edge of the table the instrument had been on. Pain sliced its way through my left side and made me cry out, and I heard the ribs go like the snapping of half-green sticks. The table gave way under us, and when we landed the gun was under me. I pulled it free, shifted it from my left hand to the right, and hit him across the left temple with it just as he was pushing up to his knees. He grunted and fell face down in what was left of the table.

  I made it to my feet, and this time I remembered Flowers’ beloved machine. I tried to unwrap the pressure cuff from around my arm, but my fingers were trembling and I couldn’t half see, so I stepped on the machine and pulled upward against the wire. It broke. The one to the tube around my chest had already parted. I ran to the front door. A steel trap of pain clamped shut around my left side. I bent over with my hand against it and kept going.

  The sunlight was blinding after the dimness inside. I saw Bonner. He was a good hundred yards away, near the mailbox, running very fast for a man with his squat, heavy build. I started after him. She wasn’t in sight from here, but he turned left, toward the highway, when he reached the road.

  My torso felt as if it had been emptied and then stuffed with broken glass or eggshells. Every breath was agony, and I ran awkwardly, with a feeling that I had been cut in two and the upper half of my body was merely riding, none too well balanced, on the lower. Then I saw her. She was running along the marl road less than fifty yards ahead of him. He was gaining rapidly. Just as I came out onto the road she looked back and saw him. She plunged off to the right, running through the palmetto and stunted pine to try to hide. I would never get there in time. I raised the gun and shot, knowing I couldn’t hit him at that distance but hoping the sound would stop him. He paid no attention. Then he was off the road, closing in on her.

  I plunged after him. For a moment I lost them and was terrif
ied. It wouldn’t take him more than a minute to kill her. Why didn’t she scream? I tore through a screen of brush then and saw them in an open area surrounding a small salt pond. She ran out into it, trying to get across. The water was a little more than knee-deep. She stumbled and fell, and he was on her before she could get up. He bent down, caught her by the hair, and held her head under.

  I tried to yell, but the last of my breath was gone. My foot caught in a mangrove root and I fell into the mud just at the edge of the water. He heard me. He straightened, and looked around. She threshed feebly, tried to get up, but fell back with her face under water.

  “Pick—pick—” I gasped. “Lift her—”

  He faced me contemptuously. “You come and get her.”

  I cocked the gun, rested it across my left forearm, and shot him through the chest. His knees folded and he collapsed face down. When I got to her the water around him was growing red, and he jerked convulsively and drew his legs up and kicked, driving his head against my legs as I put my arms around her shoulders and lifted. I got her out somehow, up beyond the slimy mud, and when she choked a few times and began to breathe I walked another few steps and fell on my knees and was sick.

  After a while we started out to the highway and a phone. When the police got back to the house they picked up Slidell over in the pines trying to bridge the switch on their rented car. The keys were in Bonner’s pocket.

  * * *

  A doctor in Marathon taped my side, and by that time the FBI men were there. They took me to a hospital in Miami for X-rays and more tape and a private room that seemed to be full of people asking questions. They said Patricia Reagan had been examined and found to be all right, and she had gone to a hotel. I finally fell asleep, and when I awoke in the morning with a steel-rigid side and a battered face through which I could see just faintly, there were some more FBI men, and after they were gone Bill came in.

  “Brother, what a face,” he said. “If that’s the only way to become a celebrity, include me out.”