The sailcloth shroud - By Charles Williams Page 0,55

know now why Reagan didn’t ask you to put him ashore. That first heart attack—and losing his medicine—scared him off. There’s no doubt he’d already been suffering from angina, or he wouldn’t have had the nitroglycerin, but this was more than that—or he thought it was, which amounts to the same thing. Of course, he still might die before he reached Southport, but even at that he’d have a better chance staying with the boat than he would landing on a deserted stretch of beach and having to fight his way through a bunch of jungle alone. So he played the percentages.”

“Yes,” I said. That seemed more or less obvious now.

“What was he wearing when he died?”

“Dungarees,” I said, “and a pair of sneakers.”

“If he’d had a money belt around him, you would have seen it?”

“Yes. But he didn’t have one.”

Flowers and Bonner were silently watching the machine. I turned and shot a glance at Patricia Reagan. Her face was pale, but she didn’t avoid my eyes now. That was something, anyway. Maybe she didn’t blame me for his death.

“Did you put any more clothes on him when you buried him?”

“No,” I said.

“And everything he owned was turned over to the US marshal?”

“That’s right.”

He exhaled smoke and stared up at the ceiling. “Now I think we’re getting somewhere, wouldn’t you say? Somewhere around nineteen thousand dollars of that money is still missing. It didn’t go ashore with his things, it wasn’t buried with him, Keefer didn’t have it, you haven’t got it, and I don’t think there’s a chance it’s on your boat. What does that leave?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Unless he just didn’t have it with him.”

He smiled coldly. “But I think he did.”

I began to get it then. You had to remember two things. The first was that he wasn’t even remotely interested in $19,000 worth of chicken-feed; from his point of view the fact that it was missing was the only good news he had left. And the other thing you had to keep in mind was that Reagan had been warned. He knew there was at least a chance he wouldn’t reach the States alive.

Excitement quickened along my nerves. All the pieces were beginning to make sense now, and I should know where that money was. And not only the money. The same thing he was looking for—a letter. I could have done it long ago, I thought, if I hadn’t subconsciously tried to reject the idea that I was to blame for Reagan’s death.

“Here’s something,” Flowers called out softly.

I glanced up then, and finally realized the real beauty of the trap they had me in. Even thinking of the answer would get me killed. Bonner’s hard eyes were on my face, and Slidell was watching me with the poised deadliness of a stalking cat.

“Have you thought of something?” he asked.

The telephone rang.

The unexpected sound of it seemed to explode in the silence, and everybody turned to look at it except Slidell. He stood up and nodded curtly to Patricia Reagan. “Answer it, and get rid of whoever it is. If it’s somebody looking for Rogers, he left. You don’t know where he went. Understand?”

She faced him for a moment, and then nodded, and crossed unsteadily to the desk. He was beside her as she picked up the receiver, and motioned for her to tilt it so he could hear too. Bonner turned and watched me. “Hello,” she said. Then, “Yes. That’s right.”

There was a longer pause. Then she said, “Yes. He was here. But he left. . . . No, he didn’t say. . . .”

So it was Bill. She was listening. She looked helplessly at Slidell. He pulled the receiver down, put his hand over it, and said, “Tell him no. It couldn’t have been. And hang up. She repeated it. “You’re welcome,” she said, and replaced the instrument.

What would he do now? There was no doubt as to what he’d asked. And I’d told him if the Reagan lead proved a dead end I was going to call the FBI. As a reporter he could conceivably find out whether I had or not. How much time would go by before he decided something was wrong? It was only a very slight one, and there was no way he could have known, but Slidell had finally made a mistake.

He motioned for her to go back, and picked up the phone himself. “Southport, Texas,” he said. “The Randall Hotel, and I want to speak to Mr.