The sailcloth shroud - By Charles Williams Page 0,35
lot of money it was in cash, and he kept it that way so he could take it with him if he had to disappear.”
“The police figure it about the same way. After all, he wouldn’t be exactly unique. We get our share of lamsters, absconding bank types, and Latin American statesmen who got out just ahead of the firing squad with a trunk full of loot.”
I lighted a cigarette. “I want to get in that house. Do you know the address?”
He nodded. “I know the address, but you couldn’t get in. It’d be tough, even for a pro. That’s about seventy thousand dollars’ worth of house, and in that class they don’t make it easy for burglars.”
“I’ve got to! Look—Baxter’s going to drive me insane, get me killed, or land me in jail. There must be an explanation for him. If I could only find out who the hell he really was, I’d at least have a place to start.”
He shook his head. “You wouldn’t find it there. The police have been over every inch of it, and they found absolutely nothing that would give them a lead, not a letter or a clipping or a scrap of paper, or even anything he’d bought before he came to Miami. They even checked the labels and laundry marks in his clothes, and they’re all local. He apparently moved in exactly the way a baby is born—naked, and with no past life whatever.”
I nodded. “That’s the impression you begin to get after a while. He came aboard the Topaz the same way. He just appears, like a revelation.”
“But about the house,” Bill went on, “I haven’t told you everything yet. I was in it this afternoon, and there’s just a chance I stumbled onto something. I don’t know.”
I looked up quickly. “What?”
“Don’t get your hopes up. The chances are a thousand to one it’s nothing at all. It’s only an autographed book and a letter.”
“How’d you get in?” I demanded. “What book is it, and who’s the letter from?”
He lighted another cigarette. “The police let me in. I went to a lieutenant I know and made him a proposition. I wanted to do a Sunday-supplement sort of piece on Hardy, and if they’d cooperate it might help both of us. Any newspaper publicity is always helpful when you’re trying to locate friends or relatives of somebody who’s dead. You know.” He made an impatient gesture, and went on.
“Anyway, they were agreeable. They had a key to the place, and sent a man with me. We spent about an hour in the house, prowling through all the desks and table drawers and his clothes and leafing through books and so on—all the stuff that had been sifted before. We didn’t find anything, of course. But when we were leaving, I noticed some mail on a small table in the front hall. The table was under the mail slot, but we hadn’t seen it when we came in because it’s behind the door when it’s open.
“Apparently what had happened was that this stuff had been delivered between the time the police were there last—shortly after the accident—and the time somebody finally got around to notifying the Post Office he was dead. Anyway, it was all postmarked in April. The detective opened it, but none of it amounted to anything. There were two or three bills and some circulars, and this letter and the book. They were both postmarked Santa Barbara, California, and the letter was from the author of the book. It was just a routine sort of thing, saying the book was being returned, autographed, as he’d requested, and thanking him for his interest. The detective kept them both, of course, but he let me read the letter, and I got another copy of the book out of the public library. Just a minute.”
He went into the living room and came back with it. I recognized it immediately; in fact, I had a copy of it aboard the Orion. It was an arty and rather expensive job, a collection of some of the most beautiful photographs of sailing craft I’d ever seen. Most of them were racing yachts under full sail, and the title of it was Music in the Wind. A good many of the photographs had been taken by the girl who’d collected and edited the job and written the descriptive material. Her name was Patricia Reagan.
“I’m familiar with it,” I said, looking at him a little blankly. I couldn’t