The sailcloth shroud - By Charles Williams Page 0,13
like it at all. Do you think something could have gone wrong?”
“Let’s go back and start over,” I suggested. “My name is Stuart Rogers, age thirty-two, male, single, charter yacht captain—”
“Will you please—” she snapped. Then she paused, apparently restraining herself, and went on more calmly. “All right, perhaps you’re right not to take chances without some proof. Fortunately, I’ve already made plane reservations. I’ll arrive at two-twenty a.m., and will be at the Warwick Hotel. Will you please meet me there as soon as I check in? It’s vitally important.” She hung up.
I shrugged, replaced the instrument, and lighted a cigarette. There was a weird one.
“Some nut?” Johns asked. He was a gaunt, white-haired man with ice-blue eyes. He leaned on the window shelf and began stoking a caked and smelly pipe. “I got a son-in-law that’s a cop, and he says you get your name in the paper you’re pestered with all kindsa screwballs.”
“Probably a drunk,” I replied.
“Too bad about that Keefer fella,” Johns went on. “Did I tell you he was here Iookin’ for you the other night?”
I glanced up quickly. “He was? When was this?”
“Hmmm. Same night they say he was killed. That’d be Thursday. I reckon I must have forgot to tell you because when you come in Ralph’d just relieved me and we was shootin’ the breeze.”
“What time was he here?”
“About seven, seven-thirty. Wasn’t long after you went out.”
I frowned. It was odd that Blackie hadn’t mentioned it when I ran into him at the Domino. “You’re sure it was Keefer?”
“That’s the name he said. Dark-haired kind of fella. Said he was the one that sailed up from Panama with you. I told him you’d gone uptown to a movie and wouldn’t be back till around eleven.”
“Was he in a car?” I asked. “And was there a girl with him?”
Johns shook his head. “He was by hisself. And I didn’t see no car; far as I know he was afoot. I reckon he’d had a couple snorts, because he got pretty hot under the collar when I wouldn’t let him go aboard the boat. He told me again about bein’ a friend of yours and comin’ up from Panama on it, and I said it didn’t make no difference to me if he’d helped you sail it here from Omaha, Nebraska. Long as he wasn’t in the crew no more he wasn’t goin’ aboard without you was with him.”
“What did he want?” I asked. “Did he say?”
“Said he forgot his razor when he was paid off. I told him he’d have to see you about that. He left, and didn’t come back.”
“Oh,” I said. “The companion hatch was locked; he couldn’t have got aboard anyway. He should have known that.”
I went back aboard the Topaz. It was after six now; I might as well knock off for the day. I walked over to the washroom, showered, shaved, and dressed in clean slacks and a fresh sport shirt. Back in the cabin, as I was putting away my shaving gear, I thought of Keefer. Odd, with all that money he had, that he would come clear back out here just to pick up the cheap shaving kit he’d bought in Panama. I paused. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t even seen it since Keefer had left. Was it just an excuse to get aboard? Maybe the man was a thief. I pulled open the drawer under the bunk Keefer had occupied. There was no razor in it. Why, the dirty . . . Well, don’t go off half-cocked, I thought; make sure it’s not aboard. I stepped into the head and pulled open the tiny medicine cabinet above the basin. There it was, the styrene case containing a safety razor and a pack of blades. My apologies, Blackie.
I went up the companion ladder. The deck now lay in the lengthening shadows of the buildings ashore, and with a slight breeze blowing up bay from the Gulf it was a little cooler. I sat down in the cockpit, took out a cigarette, and then paused just as I started to flip the lighter.
Paula.
Paula Stafford.
Was there something familiar about the name? Hadn’t I heard it before, somewhere? Oh, it was probably just imagination. I dropped the lighter back in my pocket, and inhaled deeply of the smoke, but the nagging idea persisted. Maybe Keefer had mentioned her sometime during the trip. Or Baxter.
Baxter . . . For some reason I was conscious again of that