The sailcloth shroud - By Charles Williams Page 0,6

up and reached for his hat “Let’s go in the office. Lieutenant Boyd wants to see you after a while.”

We went down the corridor to a doorway at the far end. Inside was a long room containing several desks and a battery of steel filing cabinets. The floor was of battered brown linoleum held down by strips of brass. Most of the rear wall was taken up with a duty roster and two bulletin boards festooned with typewritten notices and circulars. A pair of half-open windows on the right looked out over the street. At the far end of the room a frosted glass door apparently led to an inner office. One man in shirtsleeves was typing a report at a desk; he glanced up incuriously and went on with his work. Traffic noise filtered up from the street to mingle with the lifeless air and its stale smells of old dust and cigar smoke and sweaty authority accumulated over the years and a thousand past investigations. Willetts nodded to a chair before one of the vacant desks. I sat down, wondering impatiently how much longer it was going to take. I had plenty to do aboard the Topaz. Then I thought guiltily of Keefer’s savagely mutilated face down there under the sheet. You’re griping about your troubles?

Willetts lowered his bulk into a chair behind the desk, took some papers from a drawer, and studied them for a moment. “Did Keefer and Baxter know each other?” he asked. “I mean, before they shipped out with you?” “No,” I said.

“You sure of that?”

“I introduced them. So far as I know, they’d never seen each other before.”

“Which one did you hire first?”

“Keefer. I didn’t even meet Baxter until the night before we sailed. But what’s that got to do with Keefer’s being killed?”

“I don’t know.” Willetts returned to his study of the papers on his desk. Somewhere in the city a whistle sounded. It was noon. I lighted another cigarette, and resigned myself to waiting. Two detectives came in with a young girl who was crying. I could hear them questioning her at the other end of the room.

Willetts shoved the papers aside and leaned back in his chair. “I still don’t get this deal you couldn’t make it ashore with Baxter’s body. You were only four days out of the Canal.”

I sighed. Here was another Monday-morning quarterback. It wasn’t enough to have the Coast Guard looking down your throat; you had to be second-guessed by jokers who wouldn’t know a starboard tack from a reef point. It was simple, actually; all you had to be was a navigator, seaman, cardiologist, sailmaker, embalmer, and a magician’s mate first class who could pull a breeze out of his hat. Then I realized, for perhaps the twentieth time, that I was being too defensive and antagonistic about it. The memory rankled because I was constitutionally unable to bear the sensation of helplessness. And I had been helpless.

“The whole thing’s a matter of record,” I said wearily. “There was a hearing—” I broke off as the phone rang on an adjoining desk. Willetts reached for it.

“Homicide, Willetts. . . . Yeah. . . . Nothing at all? . . . Yeah. . . . Yeah. . . .” The conversation went on for two or three minutes. Then Willetts said, “Okay, Joe. You might as well come on in.”

He replaced the instrument, and swung back to me. “Before I forget it, the yard watchman’s got your key. Let’s go in and see Lieutenant Boyd.”

The room beyond the frosted glass door was smaller, and contained a single desk. The shirtsleeved man behind it was in his middle thirties, with massive shoulders, an air 0f tough assurance, and probing gray eyes that were neither friendly nor unfriendly.

“This is Rogers,” Willetts said.

Boyd stood up and held out his hand. “I’ve read about you,” he said briefly.

We sat down. Boyd lighted a cigarette and spoke to Willetts. “You come up with anything yet?”

“Positive identification by Rogers and the manager of the car-rental place. Also that bellhop from the Warwick. So Keefer’s all one man. But nobody’s got any idea where he found all that money. Rogers swears he couldn’t have had it when he left Panama.” He went on, repeating all I’d told him.

When he had finished, Boyd asked, “How does his story check out?”

“Seems to be okay. We haven’t located the girl yet, but the night bartender in that joint knows her, and remembers the three of ‘em.