Charles Williams - The Sailcloth Shroud

“It won’t work,” Bonner said disgustedly. “Everybody knows how they operate. The blood pressure and pulse change when you’re upset or scared. So how’re you going to tell anything with a meatball that’s scared stiff to begin with?”

“There will still be a deviation from the norm,” Flowers said contemptuously.

“To translate,” Slidell said, “what Flowers means is that if Rogers is scared stiff as a normal condition, the instrument will tell us when he’s scared rigid. Now shut up.”

Bonner subsided.

“What is your name?” Slidell asked.

“Stuart Rogers.”

“Where were you born?”

“Coral Gables, Florida.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“The University of Miami.”

“What business is your father in?”

“He was an attorney.”

“You mean he’s dead?”

“Yes,” I said.

“What did he die of?”

“He was killed in an automobile accident.”

There were fifteen or twenty more of these establishing questions while Flowers intently studied his graphs. Then Slidell said, “Did you know a man who told you his name was Wendell Baxter?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And he sailed with you from Cristobal on June first aboard your boat?”

“Yes.”

“And you put him ashore somewhere in Central America or Mexico?”

“No,” I said.

Slidell was leaning over Flowers’ shoulder, watching the styli. Flowers gave a faint shake of the head. Slidell frowned at me.

“Where did you put him ashore?”

“I didn’t,” I said.

“Where is he?”

“He’s dead.”

Flowers looked up at Slidell and spread his hands.

“You don’t see any change in pattern at all?” Slidell asked.

“No. Of course, it’s impossible to tell much with one short record—”

Bonner came over. “I told you it wouldn’t work. Let me show you how to get the truth.” His hand exploded against the side of my face and rocked me back in the chair. I tasted blood.

“You’ll have to keep this fool away from him,” Flowers said bitterly. “Look what he’s done.”

The styli were swinging violently.

“Hate,” Flowers explained.

I rubbed my face and stared at Bonner. “Tell your machine it can say that again.”

“Get away from him,” Slidell ordered.

“Let me have that gun, and give me five minutes—”

“Certainly,” Slidell said coldly. “So you can kill him before we find out anything, the way you did Keefer. Can’t you get it through your head that Rogers is the last? He’s the only person on earth who can answer these questions.”

“Well, what good is that if he keeps lying?”

“I’m not sure he is. Reagan could be dead this time. I’ve told you that before. Now get back.”

Bonner moved back to the door. Slidell and Flowers watched while the styli settled down. Patricia Reagan had turned away with her face down on her arms across the back of the couch. I couldn’t tell whether she was crying.

“Listen, Rogers,” Slidell said, “we’re going to get the truth of what happened out there on that boat if it takes a week, and you have to account for every hour of the trip, minute by minute, and we repeat these questions until you crack up and start screaming. The police will never find you, and you can’t get away. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said wearily.

“Good. Is Reagan dead?”

“Yes.”

“When did he die?”

“Four days out of Cristobal. On June fifth, at about three-thirty p.m.”

“Did you and Keefer kill him?”

“No.”

“How did he die?”

“Of an attack of some kind. The doctor who reviewed the report said it was probably a coronary thrombosis.”

“Did you make up the report?”

“I wrote it.”

“You know what I mean. Was it the truth?”

“It was the truth. It was exactly as it happened.”

Slidell turned to Flowers. “Anything yet?”

Flowers shook his head. “No change at all.”

“All right, Rogers. You read the letter Reagan wrote to Paula Stafford. He said he had twenty-three thousand dollars with him, and that he was going to ask you to put him ashore somewhere. Nineteen thousand dollars of that money is missing. Reefer didn’t have it, and it’s not on your boat. If Reagan is dead, where is it?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You stole it.”

“I’ve never even seen it.”

“Did Regan ask you to put him ashore?”

“No.”

“In four days he didn’t even mention it?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“How do I know?” I said.

Flowers held up a hand. “Run through that sequence again. There’s something funny here.”

I stared at him. One of us must be mad already.

“You’re lying, Rogers,” Slidell said. “You have to be. Reagan sailed on that boat for the purpose of having you slip him ashore. He even told Paula Stafford that. You read the letter.”

“Yes.”

“And you mean to say he didn’t even ask you?”

“He never said anything about it at all.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“There it is again,” Flowers interrupted. “A definite change in emotional response. I think he does know.”

“You killed him, didn’t you?” Slidell barked.

“No!” I said.

Then I was standing at the rail again on that Sunday afternoon watching the shrouded body fade into the depths below me, and the strange feeling of dread began to come back. I looked at the machine. The styli jerked erratically, making frenzied swings across the paper.

Slidell shoved his face close to mine. “You and Keefer killed him!”

“No!” I shouted.

Flowers nodded. “He’s lying.”

My hands were tightly clenched. I closed my eyes and tried to find the answer in the dark confusion of my thoughts. It was there somewhere, just beyond my reach. In God’s name, what was it? The water closed over him and a few bubbles drifted upward with the release of air trapped within the shroud, and he began to fall, sliding deeper and fading from view, and I began to be afraid of something I couldn’t even name, and I wanted to bring him back. I heard Patricia Reagan cry out. A hand caught the front of my shirt and I was half lifted from the chair, and Bonner was shouting in my face. I lost it completely then; everything was gone. Slidell’s voice cut through the uproar like a knife, and Bonner dropped me, and the room was silent.

“When did you kill him?” Slidell barked.

“I didn’t!”

He sighed. “All right. Begin with the first day.”

We ran out of the harbor on the auxiliary, between the big stone breakwaters where the surf was booming. Baxter took the wheel while Keefer and I got sail on her. It was past midmorning now and the Trade was picking up, a spanking full-sail breeze out of the northeast with a moderate sea in which she pitched a little and shipped a few dollops of spray that spatted against the canvas and wet the cushions of the cockpit. She was close-hauled on the starboard tack as we began to beat our way offshore.

“How does she handle?” I asked Baxter.

He was bareheaded and shirtless, as we all were, and his eyes were happier than they had been. “Very nicely,” he said. “Takes just a little weather helm.”

I peered into the binnacle. “Any chance of laying the course?”

He let her come up a little, and slides began to rattle along the luff of the mains’l. The course was still half a point to windward. “It may haul a little more to the easterly as we get offshore,” he said.

I took her for a few minutes to see how she felt, and called to Blackie. “If you want to learn to be a helmsman, here’s a good time to start.”