The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 15)

Biremes, triremes, galleys, ships of war, whole
cargoes of works of art lost on the way to Imperial
Rome, and who knows, maybe whole lost cities
inundated before the dawn of history—”
Colby noted that Martine was sorting through the
photographs, and he had an idea she was struck by
the same curious aspect of the yacht’s personnel
that had attracted his attention. Aside from Sabine
Manning herself, the entire membership of the
expedition seemed to consist of only slightly
different versions of Carlito—all Latin, sunburned,
beautiful as Greek gods, of a median age of
nineteen, and—thanks to the scantiness of their
swim trunks—quite demonstrably and abundantly
male.
There appeared to be eight or ten different ones,
but then this was a six-months’ supply. No doubt the
membership was fluid; only the expedition went on
as an established and continuous entity.
He made another attempt to break in. “Yes, I
know. I’ve read quite a bit about it, and it’s
fascinating. But I’m not sure I understand why you
want to change your image, just to do a book about
it—”

The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 14)

Colby checked the man on the floor. He was heavyshouldered,
dark, about thirty, still unconscious but
breathing all right. Colby pulled him over against
the wall out of the way, looked at him again,
shrugged, and put a sofa pillow under his head. He
was just an instrument, one of the workmen.
Decaux was still across the street, along with one
of the cars, deadly, inevitable, as impervious to
annulment or modification as planetary motion.
Colby let the drape fall back in place. Answer?
Where was it? Smuggling Kendall out of France had
sounded like an impossible project, but that was the
good old days. Try smuggling her into the next
block. Dudley came back. Colby gave him the
automatic.
“Yell, if you hear anything,” he said. He went in
search of Madame Buffet, retrieved his bag, and had
a shower and a change of clothing. When he got to
the office Martine had the Michelin road map of
France spread out on the desk, along with her
address book and a scratchpad covered with figures
and what looked like several names with telephone
numbers. She was just putting down the phone.
The Wrong Venus — 140

The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 11)

And we’ve got good old Roberto to help us, Colby
thought; that was all the situation had lacked,
having your friendly neighborhood pickpocket to
hold your coat during the fight. He looked around at
Roberto, however, saw the way the latter was eying
Kendall, and realized he might have jumped to the
wrong conclusion about those two cracks back there
beside the stream. Roberto hadn’t been trying to
knife him with Martine. He’d only been trying to cut
his throat with Kendall.
It wasn’t that they weren’t good friends and boon
companions. They were, and had been for a long
time. Roberto was amusing company, undeniably
talented as a painter—he turned out the best Utrillos
since Utrillo—and a prince of a guy who’d give you
his last hundred francs. Except that while you were
in the bank to see if it was counterfeit he’d
disappear with your girl. He respected no right of
ownership or prior claim. They were all, in his view,
simply part of the public domain, like National
Parks, and any old friend zeroing in on a really
outstanding girl with Roberto around had only to
drop his guard for a few minutes to go home on his
shield. But here, apparently, it was Kendall he was
after.

The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 10)

She turned and looked. “My God!” Her elbow
knocked over the briefcase, and several packets of
one-hundred-franc notes spilled out on the table just
as the waiter arrived with the champagne. He
stopped, rooted, his mouth hanging open. Then
Colby’s gears meshed at last. He began scooping up
the bundles of francs and cramming them back into
the briefcase. Stripping a note from the last one, he
threw it on the table, zipped the briefcase, and they
headed for the entrance just as the gendarme
trotted in.
“One moment, Mademoiselle!” he said, and made
what was probably the greatest mistake of his
career up to that time. He put out a hand. Colby
groaned.
The Wrong Venus — 100
9
He went up, wheeling, came off the shoulder, and
headed rearward in a spectacular flash of blue. In
some corner of his mind not completely numb with
horror, Colby noted that she didn't seem to be
getting quite the distance she had earlier in the
morning. It might have been because he was a
bigger man, mature and solid and heavier all
around, and perhaps a little out of balance for
perfect flight trim with the gun attached to one side
of his belt, but more likely it was simply because she
hadn't had breakfast.

The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 9)

“Actually, she can imitate any style of writing, and
this stuff of Manning’s was a cinch for her. She did a
The Wrong Venus — 79
page of it in Faulkner one day, just to bug
Merriman, and it was perfect. She could write as
fast as Sanborn, too, but she’s just not overwhelmed
with the seriousness of it all. The reason he got
ahead of her is he slept nights.
“Sometimes she wouldn’t get home till ten a.m.,
long after he’d gone to work. For breakfast she’d
have a split of champagne, six cups of coffee, and
three or four eggs, and then sit down at the
typewriter and start banging away. Vitality galore.”
“I can see how she and Dudley might get on each
other’s nerves,” Colby said. “Oh, she never paid any
attention to him. She just laughed at him or brushed
him off like a gnat—except that morning they had
the argument, I mean. She was apparently upset
about something, and when he started complaining
about her late hours, she blew up and told him off.”
“And that was the day she was kidnapped.”

The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 8)

And then with a shy little smile she was
fumbling with the straps and buckles. The
negligee slipped from her body and she
stood before him completely nude, glossy,
deep-chested, clean-limbed, her
conformation impossible to fault. His
heart leaped. . . .
He ought to get a bet down on her before the
windows closed, Colby thought. There wasn’t much
doubt it needed the Flanagan touch to whip it into
final shape. After four o’clock he began to check the
time every few minutes. It was four-twenty . . . fourthirty-
five. ... At four-forty Dudley came in carrying
the two maps and a briefcase bulging with francs.
Colby checked the money. It was all right. As he was
closing the briefcase they heard the tapping of heels
in the hallway. Martine came in. She had changed
into a severe dark suit that looked like Balenciaga,
and in place of the mink was wearing a cloth coat
that was probably easier to drive in. It was obvious
from her expression that she had news.

The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 7)

She shrugged. Happy prisoners were probably
rare anywhere. Colby gathered she had work of her
own to do without getting involved in American
activities like trapping each other, and in any event
nothing that happened in this household would ever
surprise her in the slightest. When, however, he
outlined just how the prisoner was to be allowed to
escape, her interest quickened. Yes, of course she
could understand one hundred francs spoken in
English. Also two hundred. Who knows, maybe he
would bring five hundred, if allowed to age a little
more.
No, Colby said, the essential was to harvest him as
quickly as possible; price was secondary. While he
wouldn’t dream of subjecting her to the humiliation
of taking the first offer, she must limit the
negotiations to a maximum of three minutes. She
agreed, though somewhat reluctantly. And now—
about splitting the take? It was all hers, Colby said,
and realized at once this was probably a tactical
error.

The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 6)

“That’s right.”
The Wrong Venus — 41
“If they’re going to kidnap Americans, why the hell
don’t they learn English?”
“Look at the rest of it. Are there any figures?”
“Yeah. Here’s something that looks like one
hundred thousand. I guess that’s a one in front.”
“The European one. Dollars or francs?”
“Dollars—” Dudley did a double take, and gasped.
“A hundred thousand dollars? Are they nuts?”
“They think they’ve got Miss Manning.”
“I don’t care if they’ve got the Lido floor show. I
haven’t got a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Okay,” Colby said crisply. “You need help, and
you need it bad. But one thing at a time. We’ve got
to get to Paris.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll see
what we can do about that reporter, and then try to
be at the house when your friend calls again. We
should be able to make it before five p.m. If he calls
before we get there, keep saying rappelez à cinq
heures—rappelez à cinq heures. Can you do that?”
“Rappley a sank ur. I can remember it.”

The Wrong Venus by Charles Williams 1966(page 5)

“Beautifully—until four days ago.”
The Wrong Venus — 33
In July, Dudley had gone to New York and located
a couple of writers, and brought them back to Paris
as a security measure. Naturally, the whole thing
had to be kept secret. Miss Manning’s literary agent
and publisher didn’t know she had disappeared, and
would go up like Krakatoa if they found out what
was going on. Dudley forged her signature on
correspondence and contracts.
As a team, the two writers clicked from the first
minute. Neither could have written it alone—one
hadn’t written anything in fifteen years and the
other had never written fiction at all—but together
they rolled it out like toothpaste, and it was pure
Manning. In two months they had half of it done.
Dudley sent that much of it off to New York, and her
agent and publisher raved about it. They said it was
the best thing she’d ever done.

The Wrong Venus by Charles Williams 1966(page 4)

3
It was one of those mornings Colby loved best in
London— that rare October day when miraculously
it was cursed with neither the Automobile Show nor
rain. Pale lemon sunlight slanted in on the carpet at
the other end of the room where her window
overlooked the traffic on the Thames. A breakfast
cart draped with a white cloth was parked near an
armchair, on it a silver coffee pot and a covered
chafing dish.
“Please sit down,” she said, indicating another
armchair near the writing desk. The dark hair was
rumpled, and she wore no make-up except a touch of
lipstick. Her uniform of the day, at least up to this
point, seemed to consist of nylon briefs, bra, a sheer
peignoir that wasn’t even very carefully belted, and
one fur-trimmed mule. In her left hand was a plate
containing the herring, or what was left of it. She sat
down crosswise in the armchair with a flash of long
bare legs, kicked off the other mule, and stretched
like a cat. She grinned at Colby. “A little stiff after
that workout yesterday. How about a kipper?”
“No, thanks,” he said.
“Coffee?”

The Wrong Venus by Charles Williams 1966(page 3)

The man in the seat glanced up. “I say, you don’t
happen to have the time?” He gave an apologetic
little smile. “My watch appears to have stopped.”
Colby stared down at him wordlessly, held out his
watch so the man could see it, and lunged forward
to his seat. His topcoat was lying in it. He grabbed it
up, sat down, and fastened his belt. The plane was
already dropping toward the end of the runway.
He leaned toward Martine, and whispered, “I’d
better leave ‘em. Ditch ‘em under a seat—”
“Don’t be silly. I said I’d get you through Customs,
didn’t I?” She was smiling, her eyes bright with
excitement. “We’ll muffle them, to start with. Roll
the vest in your topcoat, and then in this.” He
noticed then that she had a fur coat across her lap.
Apparently the stewardess had just returned it to
her.

The Wrong Venus by Charles Williams 1966(page 2)

The Wrong Venus — 9
The malevolent pulsing of the mainsprings died with
the first contact, like spiders in cyanide. They looked
at each other and winked. Then the plane dropped
from under them.
They were against the door in a frozen and
exaggerated tango step, the girl leaning backward
under him with her face against his chest, looking
upward. His clothing, which had flown off the hook,
began to settle. The shirt fell across his head like a
white burnoose. She grinned, and began to hum
“The Sheik of Araby.”
The plane was shooting upward now and he
couldn’t straighten against the pull of gravity.
Something was digging into his shoulder, and he
realized that it was the watch movement she still
had in her hand. He looked around on the floor for
the other.

The Wrong Venus by Charles Williams 1966(page 1)

1
Lawrence Colby by the age of thirty had been a
Korean paratrooper, art student, PR man, scriptwriter,
a dealer in art forgeries, and newspaperman,
and had once ghost-written the autobiography of a
homicidal maniac; he had been married twice, once
to an Italian actress with kleptomania and once to a
wealthy middle-aged woman who stoned embassies
and slugged cops with protest signs at
demonstrations; he had been beaten up in riots, shot
through the leg in Houston, Texas, by a woman who
was trying to kill her husband, and had been down
the Cresta Run at St. Moritz three times; but
afterward he was prone to look back on all this part
of his life before he met Martine Randall as a time
when nothing ever happened.