Charles Williams - The Sailcloth Shroud

“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 rap 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.