Charles Williams The Sailcloth Shroud (1960) (pdf)

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almost a month s salary due him.
There you are, I thought; it was an absolutely blank wall. He
hadn t stolen from the bank, but he d deliberately disappeared.
And when he showed up a month later as Brian Hardy he was rich.
She had fallen silent. I lighted a cigarette. Well, this must be the
end of the line; I might as well call the FBI. Then she said quietly,
Would you tell me about it?
I told her, playing down the pain of the heart attack and making
it as easy for her as I could. I explained about the split mains l and
being becalmed, and the fact that I had no choice but to bury him
at sea. Without actually lying about it I managed to gloss over the
sketchy aspect of the funeral and the fact that I hadn t known all
the sea-burial service. I told her it was Sunday, and gave the
position, and tried to tell her what kind of day it was. She gave a
little choked cry and turned her face away, and I looked down at
my cigarette when she got up abruptly and went out in the
The Sailcloth Shroud 85
kitchen. I sat there feeling rotten. Even with all the trouble he d
got me into, I d liked him, and I was beginning to like her.
Well, I d known all along it wasn t going to be easy when I had to
face his family and tell them about it. And it was even worse now
because, while she knew in her heart that it was her father, there
could never be any final proof. That little residue of doubt would
always remain, along with all the unanswerable questions. Was he
lying somewhere out in the desert, or under two miles of water in
the Caribbean Sea? And wherever he was, why was he there?
What had happened? What was he running from?
Then suddenly it was back again, that strange feeling of
uneasiness that always came over me when I remembered the
moment of his burial, that exact instant in which I d stood at the
rail and watched his body slide into the depths. There was no
explanation for it. I didn t even know what it was. When I reached
for it, it was gone, like a bad dream only partly remembered, and
all that was left was this formless dread that something terrible
was going to happen, or already had. I tried to shrug it off. Maybe
it had been a premonition. Why keep worrying about it now? I d
already got all the bad news.
She came back in a minute, and if she d been crying sne had
carefully erased the evidence. She was carrying two bottles of
Coke from the refrigerator. What are you going to do now? she
asked.
I don t know, I said. Call the FBI, I suppose. I d rather try
convincing them than those gorillas. Oh. I suppose this is pretty
hopeless, but did you ever hear of a man called Bonner? J. R.
Bonner? The name would be phony, of course. I described him.
She shook her head. No. I m sorry.
I hate to drag you into this, I said, but I ll have to tell them.
There ll probably be an investigation of your father.
It can t be helped, she said.
I lighted a cigarette. You re the only one so far who hasn t
accused me of killing him, stealing his money, or putting him
ashore and lying about his death. Don t you think I did, or are you
just being polite?
She gave me a brief smile. I don t believe you did. It s just
occurred to me that I know you at least by reputation. Some
friends of mine in Lynn speak very highly of you.
Who? I asked.
Ted and Frances Holt. They ve sailed with you two or three
times.
The Sailcloth Shroud 86
For the past three years, I said. They ve shot some terrific
under-water movies around the Exumas.
I suppose one of us really ought to say it s a small world, she
mused. Mr. Rogers
Stuart, I said.
Stuart. Why doesn t anybody seem to think this man Keefer
could have taken all that money assuming it was even aboard? He
seems to have had a sizable amount nobody can explain.
They d have found it, I said. When they add up what was in
the hotel safe and what he conceivably spent, it still comes out to
less than four thousand, and not even a drunk could throw away
nineteen thousand dollars in three days. But the big factor is that
he couldn t have had it with him when he left the boat. I was right
there. He didn t have any luggage, you see, because all his gear
was still on that ship he d missed in Panama. He d bought a couple
of pairs of dungarees for the trip, but I was standing right beside
him when he rolled those up, and he didn t put anything in them.
And he didn t have a coat. He might have stowed four thousand
dollars in his wallet and in the pockets of his slacks, but not
twenty-three thousand, unless it was in very large bills. Which I
doubt. A man running and trying to hide out would attract a lot of
attention trying to break anything larger than hundreds.
Maybe he took it ashore when you first docked.
No. I was with him then too.
She frowned. Then it must still be aboard the Topaz.
No, I said. It s been searched twice. By experts.
Then that seems to leave only one other possibility, she said.
She paused, and then went on unhappily. This isn t easy to say,
under the circumstances, but do you suppose he could have been
unbalanced?
I don t think so, I said. I did when I first read the letter, of
course. I mean, he said he had twenty-three thousand with him,
but nobody else ever saw it. He said he was going to ask me to put
him ashore, but he never did. And the fact that he was going to
wait and put a wild proposition like that to me after we got to sea
didn t sound very logical, either. A rational man would have
realized how slim the chances were that anybody would go for it,
and would have sounded me out before we sailed. But if you look
at all these things again, you re not so sure.
He apparently did have some money with him. Four thousand,
anyway. So if he had that much, maybe he had it all. And waiting
till we got to sea to proposition me makes sense if you look at it
The Sailcloth Shroud 87
correctly. If he brought it up before we sailed, I might refuse to
take him at all. Getting out of the Canal Zone before this Slidell
caught up with him was the number-one item. If he brought up the
other thing later and I turned him down, at least he was out of
Panama and safe for the moment.
So we wind up right where we started.
That s right, I said. With the same two questions. What
became of the rest of the money? And why did he change his
mind?
The doorbell chimed.
We exchanged a quick glance, and got to our feet. There d been
no sound of a car outside, nor of footsteps on the walk. She
motioned me toward the hallway and started to the door, but
before she got there it swung open and a tall man in a gray suit
and dark green glasses stepped inside and curtly motioned her
back. At the same instant I heard the back door open. I whirled.
Standing in the arched doorway to the kitchen was a heavy-
shouldered tourist wearing a loud sport shirt, straw cap, and an
identical pair of green sunglasses. He removed the glasses and
grinned coldly at me. It was Bonner.
Escape was impossible. The first man had a gun; I could see the
sagging weight of it in his coat pocket. Patricia gasped, and
retreated from him, her eyes wide with alarm. She came back
against the desk beside the entrance to the hall. Bonner and the
other man came toward me. The latter took out a pack of
cigarettes. We ve been waiting for you, Rogers, he said, and held
them out toward me. Smoke?
For an instant all three of us seemed frozen there, the two of
them in an attitude almost of amusement while I looked futilely [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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