The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 4)

4
New York? Must be a mistake, I thought as I went up the
pier. I didn’t know anybody there who would be trying to
phone me. The watchman’s shack was just inside the gate,
with a door and a wide window facing the driveway. Johns
set the instrument on the window counter. “Here you go.”
I picked it up. “Hello. Rogers speaking.”
It was a woman’s voice. “Is this the Mr. Stuart Rogers who
owns the yacht Topaz?”
“That’s right.”
“Good.” There was evident relief in her voice. Then she
went on softly, “Mr. Rogers, I’m worried. I haven’t heard
from him yet.”
“From whom?” I asked blankly.
“Oh,” she replied. “I am sorry. It’s just that I’m so upset.
This is Paula Stafford.”
It was evident from the way she said it the name was
supposed to explain everything. “I don’t understand,” I said.
“What is it you want?”
“He did tell you about me, didn’t he?”
I sighed. “Miss Stafford—or Mrs. Stafford—I don’t know
what you’re talking about. Who told me about you?”
“You’re being unnecessarily cautious, Mr. Rogers. I assure
you I’m Paula Stafford. It must have been at least two weeks
The Sailcloth Shroud — 31
now, and I still have no word from him. I don’t like it at all.
Do you think something could have gone wrong?”
“Let’s go back and start over,” I suggested. “My name is
Stuart Rogers, age thirty-two, male, single, charter yacht
captain—”

The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 3)

3
At least, I thought morosely as we stepped from the elevator,
the Federal Building was air-conditioned. If you were going
to spend the rest of your life being questioned about Keefer
by all the law-enforcement agencies in the country, it helped
a little if you were comfortable. Not that I had anything
against heat as such; I liked hot countries, provided they
were far enough away from civilization to do away with the
wearing of shirts that did nothing but stick to you like some
sort of soggy film. The whole day was shot to hell now, but
this was an improvement over the police station.
I glanced sidewise in grudging admiration at Special Agent
Soames—cool, efficient, and faultlessly pressed. Sweat would
never be any problem to this guy; if it bothered him he’d turn
it off. In the ten minutes since I’d met him in Lieutenant
Boyd’s office, I’d learned exactly nothing about why they
wanted to talk to me. I’d asked, when we were out on the
street, and had been issued a friendly smile and one politely
affable assurance that it was merely routine. We’d discuss it
over in the office. Soames was thirty-ish and crew-cut, but
anything boyish and ingenuous about him was strictly
superficial; he had a cool and very deadly eye. We went down
the corridor, with my crepe soles squeaking on waxed tile.
Soames opened a frosted glass door and stood aside for me
to enter. Inside was a small anteroom. A trim gray-haired
woman in a linen suit was typing energetically at a desk that
The Sailcloth Shroud — 20
held a telephone and a switchbox for routing calls. Behind
her was the closed door to an inner office, and to the left I
could see down a hallway past a number of other doors.
Soames looked at his watch and wrote something in the book
that was on a small desk near the door. Then he nodded
politely, and said, “This way, please.”

The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 2)

2
I shook my head in bewilderment. “I don’t get it. Are you
sure about all this?”
“Of course we’re sure. Where you think we first got a lead
on the identification? We got a body, with no name. Traffic’s
got a wrinkled Thunderbird with rental plates somebody
walked off and abandoned after laying a block on a fire
hydrant with it, and a complaint sworn out by the Willard
Rental Agency. The Willard manager’s got a description, and
a local address at the Warwick Hotel, and a name. Only this
Francis Keefer they’re all trying to locate hasn’t been in his
room since Thursday, and he sounds a lot like the stiff we’re
trying to identify. He’d been tossing big tips around the
Warwick, and told one of the bellhops he’d just sailed up
from Panama in a private yacht, so then somebody
remembered the story in Wednesday’s Telegram. So we look
you up, among other things, and you give us this song and
dance that Keefer was just a merchant seaman, and broke.
Now. Keefer lied to you, or you’re trying to con me. And if
you are, God help you.”

The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams 1960(page 1)

1
I was up the mainmast of the Topaz in a bosun’s chair when
the police car drove into the yard, around eleven o’clock
Saturday morning. The yard doesn’t work on Saturdays, so
there was no one around except me, and the watchman out
at the gate. The car stopped near the end of the pier at which
the Topaz was moored, and two men got out. I glanced at
them without much interest and went on with my work,
hand-sanding the mast from which the old varnish had been
removed. They were probably looking for some exuberant
type off the shrimp boat, I thought. She was the Leila M., the
only other craft in the yard at the moment.
They came on out on the pier in the blazing sunlight,
however, and halted opposite the mainmast to look up at me.
They wore lightweight suits and soft straw hats, and their
shirts were wilted with perspiration.
“Your name Rogers?” one of them asked. He was middleaged,
with a square, florid face and expressionless gray eyes.
“Stuart Rogers?”