Charles Williams - The Sailcloth Shroud

Her face became completely still then. She stared at me, her eyes growing wider and wider. “You killed him,” she whispered. “That’s why I’ve never heard from him.”

“Stop it!” I commanded. “There has to be some answer—”

“You killed him!” She put her hands up alongside her temples and screamed, with the cords standing out in her throat. “You killed him! You killed him!”

“Listen!”

She went on screaming. Her eyes were completely mad.

I ran.

7

Doors were opening along the corridor and faces were peering out. When I reached the elevator it was on its way up. That would be the hotel detective. I plunged down the stairs with the screams still ringing in my ears. When I reached the lobby at last, it was quiet. Hotels in the Warwick’s class don’t like police milling around in the lobby if they can help it. I crossed the deserted acres, feeling the eyes of the clerk on my back. In less than five minutes I was back in my own room at the Bolton. I hooked the chain on the door and collapsed on the side of the bed. I reached for a cigarette and got it going somehow.

Now what? There was no use trying to talk to her again; she was on the ragged edge of a crackup. Even if they got her calmed down, seeing me would only set her off again. The thing to do was call the FBI. Then I thought of the letter. If they ever saw that . . .

It was absolutely deadly; the more I looked at it, the worse it became. How could anybody ever believe me now? Baxter had sailed on the Topaz with $23,000 and had never been seen again. I swore he’d died of a heart attack and that all the money he’d had was $175. Then Keefer was discovered to have $4000 nobody could explain, and he was killed. I was the only survivor. There was only my unsupported word that Baxter had even had a heart attack, and $19,000 was still missing.

The least I would be suspected of would be stealing from a dead man and then burying him at sea and destroying his identification to cover up the theft. Or landing him on the coast of Central America as he’d asked, and swearing to a false report that he was dead. The third was even worse. Keefer and I could have killed him. Maybe they couldn’t convict me of any of it—they wouldn’t have any more actual proof on their side than I had on mine—but even the suspicion would ruin me. I was in the charter business. Cruise the exotic Bahamas with Captain Rogers, and disappear. They’d take away my license. Except of course that the hoodlums who were after Baxter might kill me before any of these other things could happen. I sat on the side of the bed with my head in my hands.

Then I was struck by an odd thought. What had given them the idea I’d put Baxter ashore? It seemed now there was some basis for their insane theory, but how had they known it? So far as I knew he’d written only that one letter, and she swore nobody else had seen it.

I closed my eyes, and I could see Baxter. Baxter at the wheel, watching the compass, looking aloft for the flutter at the luff of the mains’l, Baxter trimming and starting the sheets, Baxter washing dishes, Baxter quietly smoking a cigarette and looking out across the darkening sea at dusk. He haunted me. He was becoming an obsession. If he’d meant what he had written to Paula Stafford, why had he never once, in all those four days, brought up the subject of being put ashore? I wouldn’t have done it, of course, but there was no way he could have been sure of that until he’d dangled the proposition and the money in front of me. Why had he changed his mind? If he’d had $23,000, where was it? Maybe Keefer had stolen $4000 of it, but why stop there?

He’d had four whole days in which to bring up the subject, but he never had. Why? Something must have changed his mind, but what? For one agonizing instant I had the feeling that I knew the answer to that, and that I should know who Baxter really was. Then the whole thing was gone. I wanted to beat my fists against my head.

All right, I thought angrily, what did I know about him? Add it all up. He was from Miami, or had been in Miami at some time. I was from Miami myself, and knew a lot of people there, especially around the waterfront. His first name was Brian. The photograph had showed him at the topside controls of a sport fisherman, which was definitely a clue because I had an idea of the type and had seen the last two letters of the name. Maybe I’d seen him somewhere before, or had heard of him. Why not go back to Miami now, instead of sitting here like a duck in a shooting gallery? I reached for the phone.

There were two airlines with service from here to Florida. The first had nothing available before 12:30 p.m. I called the other.

“Yes, sir,” the girl at the reservations desk said, “we still have space on flight 302. That departs Southport five-fifty-five a.m., and arrives Miami at one-forty-five p.m., with stops at New Orleans and Tampa.”

I looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes of five. “Right,” I said. “The name is Stuart Rogers. I’ll pick up the ticket at the airport as soon as I can get there.”

I broke the connection and got the hotel operator again. “Give me long distance, please.”

When the long-distance operator came on, I said, “I’d like to put in a call to Miami.” I gave her the number.

“Thank you. Will you hold on, please?”

I waited, listening to the chatter of the operators. Bill Redmond would love being hauled out of bed this time of morning. He was an old friend—we’d been classmates at the University of Miami—but he was a reporter on the Herald, and had probably just got to sleep. The Herald is a morning paper.

“Hello.” It was a girl’s voice. A very sleepy girl.

“I have a long distance call from Southport, Texas—” the operator began.

“I don’t know any Texans—”

“Lorraine,” I broke in, “this is Stuart.”

“Oh, good God. Bachelors! There ought to be a law.”

“Will you put Bill on? It’s important”

“I’ll bet. Well, stand back, and I’ll poke him with something.”

I heard him mutter drowsily. Then, “Look, pal, you got any idea what time it is?”

“Never mind,” I said. “You can sleep when you get old. I need some help. It’s about that trip up from Cristobal with that ketch I went down there to buy.”

He interrupted, fully awake now. “I know about it. AP carried a few lines, and we ran it on account of the local angle. Guy died of a heart attack, what was his name?”

“That’s it exactly,” I said. “What was his name? It was supposed to be Baxter, but it turns out that was phony. There was something wrong about him, and I’m in a hell of a jam I’ll tell you about as soon as I can get there. I’ve got to find out who he was. I think he was from Miami, and there’s some sort of screwy impression I’ve heard of him before. Are you still with me?”

“Keep firing. What did he look like?”

I gave him a short description, and went on. “The Miami hunch comes from a photograph of him that was shown me. I’m pretty sure what I saw in the background was part of the MacArthur Causeway and some of those islands along Government Cut. He was on the flying bridge of a sport fisherman. It was a big one and expensive looking, and I think it was one of those Rybovich jobs. If he owned it, he was probably well-heeled when he was around there because they’re not exactly the playthings of the Social Security set. One of the life rings was just behind him, and I could see the last two letters of the name. They were ‘a-t’ From the size of the letters, it could be a long name. His first name was Brian. B-r-i-a-n. Got all that?”

“Yeah. And I’m like you. I think I hear a bell trying to ring.”