Doors were opening along the corridor and faces were
peering out. When I reached the elevator it was on its way
up. That would be the hotel detective. I plunged down the
stairs with the screams still ringing in my ears. When I
reached the lobby at last, it was quiet. Hotels in the
Warwick’s class don’t like police milling around in the lobby
if they can help it. I crossed the deserted acres, feeling the
eyes of the clerk on my back. In less than five minutes I was
back in my own room at the Bolton. I hooked the chain on the
door and collapsed on the side of the bed. I reached for a
cigarette and got it going somehow.
Now what? There was no use trying to talk to her again;
she was on the ragged edge of a crackup. Even if they got
her calmed down, seeing me would only set her off again.
The thing to do was call the FBI. Then I thought of the letter.
If they ever saw that . . .
It was absolutely deadly; the more I looked at it, the worse
it became. How could anybody ever believe me now? Baxter
had sailed on the Topaz with $23,000 and had never been
seen again. I swore he’d died of a heart attack and that all
the money he’d had was $175. Then Keefer was discovered
to have $4000 nobody could explain, and he was killed. I was
the only survivor. There was only my unsupported word that
Baxter had even had a heart attack, and $19,000 was still
missing.
The Sailcloth Shroud — 60
The least I would be suspected of would be stealing from a
dead man and then burying him at sea and destroying his
identification to cover up the theft. Or landing him on the
coast of Central America as he’d asked, and swearing to a
false report that he was dead. The third was even worse.
Keefer and I could have killed him. Maybe they couldn’t
convict me of any of it—they wouldn’t have any more actual
proof on their side than I had on mine—but even the
suspicion would ruin me. I was in the charter business.
Cruise the exotic Bahamas with Captain Rogers, and
disappear. They’d take away my license. Except of course
that the hoodlums who were after Baxter might kill me
before any of these other things could happen. I sat on the
side of the bed with my head in my hands.
Then I was struck by an odd thought. What had given them
the idea I’d put Baxter ashore? It seemed now there was
some basis for their insane theory, but how had they known
it? So far as I knew he’d written only that one letter, and she
swore nobody else had seen it.
I closed my eyes, and I could see Baxter. Baxter at the
wheel, watching the compass, looking aloft for the flutter at
the luff of the mains’l, Baxter trimming and starting the
sheets, Baxter washing dishes, Baxter quietly smoking a
cigarette and looking out across the darkening sea at dusk.
He haunted me. He was becoming an obsession. If he’d
meant what he had written to Paula Stafford, why had he
never once, in all those four days, brought up the subject of
being put ashore? I wouldn’t have done it, of course, but
there was no way he could have been sure of that until he’d
dangled the proposition and the money in front of me. Why
had he changed his mind? If he’d had $23,000, where was it?
Maybe Keefer had stolen $4000 of it, but why stop there?
He’d had four whole days in which to bring up the subject,
but he never had. Why? Something must have changed his
mind, but what? For one agonizing instant I had the feeling
that I knew the answer to that, and that I should know who
Baxter really was. Then the whole thing was gone. I wanted
to beat my fists against my head.
All right, I thought angrily, what did I know about him?
Add it all up. He was from Miami, or had been in Miami at
some time. I was from Miami myself, and knew a lot of
people there, especially around the waterfront. His first
The Sailcloth Shroud — 61
name was Brian. The photograph had showed him at the
topside controls of a sport fisherman, which was definitely a
clue because I had an idea of the type and had seen the last
two letters of the name. Maybe I’d seen him somewhere
before, or had heard of him. Why not go back to Miami now,
instead of sitting here like a duck in a shooting gallery? I
reached for the phone.
There were two airlines with service from here to Florida.
The first had nothing available before 12:30 p.m. I called the
other.
“Yes, sir,” the girl at the reservations desk said, “we still
have space on flight 302. That departs Southport five-fiftyfive
a.m., and arrives Miami at one-forty-five p.m., with stops
at New Orleans and Tampa.”
I looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes of five.
“Right,” I said. “The name is Stuart Rogers. I’ll pick up the
ticket at the airport as soon as I can get there.”
I broke the connection and got the hotel operator again.
“Give me long distance, please.”
When the long-distance operator came on, I said, “I’d like
to put in a call to Miami.” I gave her the number.
“Thank you. Will you hold on, please?”
I waited, listening to the chatter of the operators. Bill
Redmond would love being hauled out of bed this time of
morning. He was an old friend—we’d been classmates at the
University of Miami—but he was a reporter on the Herald,
and had probably just got to sleep. The Herald is a morning
paper.
“Hello.” It was a girl’s voice. A very sleepy girl.
“I have a long distance call from Southport, Texas—” the
operator began.
“I don’t know any Texans—”
“Lorraine,” I broke in, “this is Stuart.”
“Oh, good God. Bachelors! There ought to be a law.”
“Will you put Bill on? It’s important”
“I’ll bet. Well, stand back, and I’ll poke him with
something.”
I heard him mutter drowsily. Then, “Look, pal, you got any
idea what time it is?”
The Sailcloth Shroud — 62
“Never mind,” I said. “You can sleep when you get old. I
need some help. It’s about that trip up from Cristobal with
that ketch I went down there to buy.”
He interrupted, fully awake now. “I know about it. AP
carried a few lines, and we ran it on account of the local
angle. Guy died of a heart attack, what was his name?”
“That’s it exactly,” I said. “What was his name? It was
supposed to be Baxter, but it turns out that was phony. There
was something wrong about him, and I’m in a hell of a jam
I’ll tell you about as soon as I can get there. I’ve got to find
out who he was. I think he was from Miami, and there’s some
sort of screwy impression I’ve heard of him before. Are you
still with me?”
“Keep firing. What did he look like?”
I gave him a short description, and went on. “The Miami
hunch comes from a photograph of him that was shown me.
I’m pretty sure what I saw in the background was part of the
MacArthur Causeway and some of those islands along
Government Cut. He was on the flying bridge of a sport
fisherman. It was a big one and expensive looking, and I
think it was one of those Rybovich jobs. If he owned it, he
was probably well-heeled when he was around there because
they’re not exactly the playthings of the Social Security set.
One of the life rings was just behind him, and I could see the
last two letters of the name. They were ‘a-t’ From the size of
the letters, it could be a long name. His first name was Brian.
B-r-i-a-n. Got all that?”
“Yeah. And I’m like you. I think I hear a bell trying to ring.”
“There was also mention of another man I don’t know
anything about at all. Slidell. Maybe somebody’s heard of
him. I’ll be in Miami as soon as I can get there. See if you can
find out anything at all.”
“Right. Take it easy, sailor.”
Packing was no problem; I hadn’t unpacked. I called the
desk to get my bill ready and send for a cab. The lobby was
empty except for the clerk. I settled the bill and was putting
away my change when the taxi driver came in and got the
bag. We went out. It was growing light now. The street had
been washed, and for this brief moment just at dawn the city
was almost cool and fresh. I looked up and down the street;
The Sailcloth Shroud — 63
there were no pedestrians in sight, and only an occasional
car. “Airport,” I told the driver, and we pulled out.
I watched out the rear window, and just before we reached
the end of the block I saw a car pull out from the curb behind
us. It had its lights on, so it was impossible to get an idea of
what make it was, or what color. Two blocks ahead we
turned to the left. The car—or another one—was still behind
us. I kept watching. For a time there were two, and then
three, and then we were back to one again. There was no
way to tell if it was the same one, but it always stayed the
same distance back, about a full city block. We made another
turn, picking up the highway leading out of town, and it was
still there.
I began to worry. The airport was pretty far out, and there
were no doubt plenty of deserted stretches of road where
they could force us off if they were after me. My only chance
—if I had any—would be to jump and run for it. I’d have to
warn the driver, though. If he tried to outrun them, they’d
probably kill him. The minute I saw them start to close in, I’d
tell him to stop.
Then, suddenly, they turned off and we were alone. After
another mile with the pavement completely empty behind us
I heaved a sigh of relief. False alarm. I was too jittery.
Hell, they didn’t even know I was at the hotel; nobody had
followed us when I came uptown from the boatyard.
Then I realized I was a baby at this sort of thing and that I
was up against professionals. Maybe they had been following
us. By the time we’d reached the place where they had
turned off it was obvious where I was headed so they no
longer had to stay in sight. It could have been the same thing
when I came up from the yard. They’d merely called the
hotels until they located me; there probably weren’t over half
a dozen. I felt ridiculous and stupid, and a little scared.
If they were after me, what was the best plan? I
remembered what Willetts had said—they’re all afraid of
witnesses. Then stay in the open, surrounded by plenty of
people, I thought. We left the city behind, rolling through the
outlying housing developments, and crossed a bayou
overhung with dark liveoaks and dangling pennants of
Spanish moss. The sun was just rising when we pulled up in
The Sailcloth Shroud — 64
front of the airport passenger terminal. I paid off the driver
and went inside with my bag.
It was a good-sized terminal, busy even at this hour in the
morning. Long windows in front looked out toward the
runways, and at either end were the concourses leading to
the gates. To the left were some shops and the newsstand
and restaurant, while all the airline counters were strung out
along the right. I went over, checked in, and paid for my
ticket.
“Thank you, Mr. Rogers,” the girl said. She clipped my
luggage check to the boarding pass and gave me my change.
“Concourse B, Gate Seven. The flight will be called in
approximately ten minutes.”
I bought a newspaper, moved back to a leather-cushioned
bench, and sat down to sweat out the ten minutes. If they
were following me, they’d try to get on this flight, or at least
get one man on it. I was just in back of the two lines
checking in. I looked them over cautiously while pretending
to read the paper. There was a slight, graying man with a
flyrod case. Two young girls, who might be teachers on
vacation. An elderly woman. A fat man carrying a briefcase.
A Marine. Two sailors in whites. A squat, heavy-shouldered
man carrying his coat over his arm. My eyes stopped, and
came back to him.
He was at the head of the line now, in the row in which I’d
checked in. He would have been about two places behind me,
I thought. The girl was shaking her head at him. I strained to
hear what she was saying.
“. . . sold out. We’d be glad to put you on stand-by, though;
there are still about four who haven’t checked in.”
He nodded. I could see nothing but his back.
“Your name, please?” the girl asked.
“J. R. Bonner.”
The voice was a gravelly baritone, but there was none of
the rasp and menace there’d been in the other. Well, why
should there be, under the circumstances? You couldn’t tell
much about a voice from one or two words, anyway. I
glanced down at his shoes. They were black, size ten or
eleven, but I was a little to the left and couldn’t see the
outside of the right one. I returned to my paper, pretending
The Sailcloth Shroud — 65
to read. In a moment he turned away from the counter. I
looked at him in the unseeing, incurious way your eyes go
across anyone in a crowd.
Aside from an impression of almost brutal strength about
the shoulders and arms, he could have been anybody—line
coach of a professional football team, or the boss of a heavy
construction outfit. He wore a soft straw hat, white shirt, and
blue tie, and the coat he carried over his arm and the
trousers were the matching components of a conservative
blue suit. He was somewhere around forty, about five-nine,
and well over two hundred pounds, but he walked as lightly
as a big cat. His eyes met mine for an instant with the chill,
impersonal blankness of outer space, and moved on. He sat
down on the bench over to my left. I looked back at my
paper. How did you know? What did appearances mean? He
could be a goon with the accomplished deadliness of a cobra,
or he might be wondering at the moment whether to buy his
five-year-old daughter a stuffed bear or one of the Dr. Seuss
books for a coming-home present. I glanced at his feet again,
and this time I could see it. The right shoe had been slit
along the welt for about an inch just under the little toe.
I folded the paper, slapped it idly against my hand, and got
up and walked past him. He paid no attention. I strolled over
and looked out the long glass wall in front at the runways
and dead grass and the bright metal skin of a DC-7
shattering the rays of morning sunlight. It was a weird
sensation, and a scary one, being hunted. And in broad
daylight, in a busy, peaceful airport. It was unreal. But what
was even more unreal was the fact that there was nothing I
could do about it. Suppose I called the police. Arrest that
man; he’s got a cut place in his shoe.
I wondered if he had a gun. There didn’t seem to be any
place he could be carrying one unless he had it in the pocket
of the coat slung over his arm. If he held it just right, nobody
could tell. He had no luggage. And the chances were he was
alone. With the flight sold out there wasn’t much percentage
in more than one of them bucking the stand-by list. If he got
aboard, he could keep me in sight until the others caught up.
Well, he wasn’t aboard yet. Maybe he wouldn’t make it. They
announced the flight. I walked out Concourse B, feeling his
eyes in the middle of my back in spite of the fact that I knew
The Sailcloth Shroud — 66
he probably wasn’t even looking at me. Why should he? He
knew where I was going.
Number 302 was a continuing flight, so there were only
nine or ten people at Gate 7 waiting to go aboard. Some
through passengers who had deplaned to stretch their legs
were allowed to go through first. Boarding passengers went
through single file while the gate attendant checked our
tickets. I was last. As I went up the steps I resisted an
impulse to look back. He would be watching from somewhere
to be sure I went aboard. There were still four or five empty
seats, but that meant nothing. Two would be for the
stewardesses, and some of the through passengers might
still be in the terminal. I took one on the aisle, aft of the door.
There might even be people ahead of him on stand-by. I
waited. I was on the wrong side to see the gate, even if I’d
had a window seat. It was stifling with the plane on the
ground. Sweat gathered on my face. Another passenger
came aboard, a woman. Then one in uniform, an Air Force
major. I began to hope. The captain and first officer came
through the doorway and went forward. The door to the
flight compartment closed. Then two minutes before they
took away the ramp Bonner came through the door. He took
the last empty seat.
We were down in the steamy heat of New Orleans at 8:05
for a twenty-minute stop. Bonner played it very cagey; I
remained in my seat while the first wave deplaned, but he
went out with them. I could see the beauty of that. He could
watch the ramp from inside the terminal to see if I got off or
not, so he had me bottled up without being in evidence
himself. But if he stayed and I got off, five minutes later he
would have to follow me. Smart, I thought. I left the plane. As
soon as I was inside the terminal I saw him. He was reading
a newspaper, paying no attention to me. I sauntered out
front to the limousines and taxis. There he was, still paying
no attention.
There was no longer any doubt. Maybe I could call the
police and have him picked up. No, that wouldn’t work. I had
no proof whatever. He would have identification, a good
story, an alibi—they couldn’t hold him ten minutes. I had to
escape from him some way. But how? He was a professional
and knew all the tricks; I was an amateur. Then I began to
The Sailcloth Shroud — 67
have an idea. Make it novice against novice, and I might have
a chance.
We landed at Tampa at 11:40 a.m. As soon as the door was
open I arose and stretched and followed the crowd into the
terminal. I stood for a moment looking idly at the paperback
books in the rack at the newsstand, and then drifted outside.
I’d had a forlorn hope that I might catch the taxi stand with
only one cab on station, but there was no such luck. There
were four. The driver of the lead-off hack, however, was
behind the wheel and ready to go. Bonner was just coming
through the door about twenty feet to my left, lighting a
cigarette and looking at everything except me. I strolled on
past the line until I was abreast the lead one.
Turning quickly, I opened the door and slid in. “Downtown.
Tampa,” I told the driver.
“Yes, sir.” He punched the starter. We pulled away from
the loading zone. As we headed for the street I looked back.
Bonner was climbing into the second cab. We had a lead of
about a block. I took a twenty from my wallet and dropped it
on the front seat beside the driver.
“There’s a cab following us,” I said. “Can you lose him?”
His eyes flicked downward at the money and then straight
ahead. “Not if he’s a cop.”
“He’s not.”
“That’s what you say.”
“Why would he take a cab?” I asked. “There’s a sheriffs car
right there at the terminal.”
He nodded. Swinging into the street, he bore down on the
accelerator. “Mister, consider him lost.”
I looked back. The other cab was weaving through traffic
slightly less than a block behind us now. We wouldn’t have a
chance, I thought, if he had one of his fellow professionals at
the wheel, but now the odds were even. No, they were a little
better than even. We knew what we were going to do, but he
had to wait till we’d done it to find out. It took less than ten
minutes. The second time we ran a light on the amber and he
tried to follow us through on the red, he locked fenders with
a panel truck in the middle of the intersection.
“Nice going,” I said. “Now the Greyhound Bus terminal.”
The Sailcloth Shroud — 68
I got out there and paid him for the meter in addition to the
twenty. As soon as he was out of sight, I walked through the
station and over to a taxi stand in front of a hotel, and took
another cab to a Hertz agency. Thirty minutes later I was
headed south on US 41 in a rented Chevrolet. There was no
telling how long my luck would last, but for the moment I’d
lost them.
My head began to ache again and I was having trouble
staying awake. I suddenly realized it was Sunday afternoon
now and I hadn’t been to bed since Friday night. When I
reached Punta Gorda I pulled into a motel and slept for six
hours. I rolled into Miami shortly after 2 a.m. Going out to
the airport to claim my bag would be too dangerous, even if I
got a porter to pick it up. Bonner would be there, or he’d
have somebody watching it. I turned the car in, and took a
cab to a hotel on Biscayne Boulevard, explained that my bag
had got separated from me when I changed planes in
Chicago, and registered as Howard Summers from Portland,
Oregon. They wouldn’t locate me this time merely by calling
the hotels. I asked for a room overlooking Bayfront Park,
bought a Herald, and followed the boy into the elevator. The
room was on the twelfth floor. As soon as he left I went over
to the window and parted the slats of the Venetian blind. Just
visible around to the left was City Yacht Basin. Sticking up
out of the cluster of sightseeing and charter fishing boats
were the tall sticks of the Orion. It made me sick to be this
near and not be able to go aboard.
I turned away and reached for the telephone. Bill Redmond
should be home by now. He answered on the first ring.
“Stuart—” I began.
He cut me off. “Good God, where are you?”
I told him the hotel. “Room 1208.”
“You’re in Miami? Don’t you ever read the papers?”
“I’ve got a Herald, but I haven’t looked at—”
“Read it. I’m on my way over there now.” He hung up.
The paper was lying on the bed, where I’d tossed it when I
came in. I spread it open, put a cigarette in my mouth, and
started to flick the lighter. Then I saw it.
LOCAL YACHT CAPTAIN
The Sailcloth Shroud — 69
SOUGHT IN SEA MYSTERY
The police had Baxter’s letter.
The Sailcloth Shroud — 70
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