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radio, book racks, clothing lockers, and even in the
bilge. He found a carton of radiotelephone spare
parts which contained several tubes, but they were
apparently all for the receiver; at any rate, none
matched the type numbers stamped beside the
empty sockets. He moved into the two double
staterooms that faced each other across the narrow
passageway connecting the main cabin and the
galley, but found nothing except the suitcase which
had apparently belonged to Ives.
By this time Rae Osborne had been through
everything in the galley. “No tubes,” she said. “But
here’s a diving mask I found in a locker up forward.”
They went aft. Ingram looked at his watch; it was
2:20 p.m.

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Aground — 89
spreader lights. With that radio and the lights and
refrigerator they would run the batteries down. Then
he was conscious of annoyance with himself. You’ve
lived alone too long, he thought; you’re beginning to
sound like Granny Grunt. You form a mule-headed
prejudice against a woman merely because nobody’s
ever told her you don’t set highball glasses on
charts, and now while you’re living one hour at a
time on the wrong end of a burning fuse you’re
stewing about the drain on a set of batteries. You
ought to be playing checkers in the park.
The pillow and the folded blanket were beside him.
He picked up the blanket and gave it a flipping
motion to spread it, and heard something drop
lightly on the sand. Apparently whatever it was had
been rolled up inside; he leaned forward and felt
around with his hands, wondering idly what it could
be. He failed to find it, however, and after another
futile sweep of his arms he flicked on the cigar
lighter and saw it, just beyond the end of the
blanket. It was a black plastic container of some
kind, apparently a soap dish from a toilet kit or
travel case. Well, at least he’d be able to wash up in
the morning. He retrieved it, and was about to set it
on the crates behind him when he heard a faint
metallic click inside. He pulled the lid off, and
flicked on the fighter again. There were several
things in it—none of them soap.

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Morrison gestured impatiently. “We were trying to
turn to get out of here. It was night, like I said, and
we couldn’t see anything. And all of a sudden we
heard something that sounded like a beach.”
“You turned the wrong way. But I don’t get what
you were doing in here over the Bank in the first
place. You should have been at least ten miles to the
westward.”
“I wouldn’t know about that. I’m no navigator. It
looks like we could have used one. I tried to get
Hollister to proposition you—”
“Wait a minute. You mean you know me?”
“Sure. I thought I recognized you when you came
aboard, and when the pilot called you Ingram I had
you made.”
“Where did you see me before?”
“In the lobby of the Eden Roc when you went to
see Hollister the first time.”
Rae Osborne broke in. “Why did this man Hollister
want somebody else to inspect the Dragoon instead
of going himself?”
Morrison shrugged. “He said the watchman might
remember him. He was an old boy friend of the
owner, and he’d been aboard before.”
She said nothing, and turned to stare out across
the water to the northward. Well, at least her
question was answered, Ingram thought. “Whose
idea was it, stealing the boat?” he asked.
“Hollister’s. Or whatever you said his name was.”
“Patrick Ives,” she said.
“Anyway, he was supposed to furnish the
transportation and the know-how to get us down
there. Said he’d been around boats a lot, and used to
be a navigator in the Eighth Air Force during the
war. From the looks of it, he wasn’t so hot. We could
have used you.”

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She looked down at her glass. “I suppose so.”
“Was he a doctor?” he asked.
“No,” she said, without looking up. “He was a
phony. He liked to pass himself off as a doctor when
he was cashing rubber checks.”
He nodded. “That sounds like him. I’ve got one of
his checks.”
“Well, it’s no collector’s item.”
“You don’t have any idea at all why he would steal
the boat?”
“None whatever, as I told you once before. Would
you like me to have that statement notarized,
Captain?”
Well, Ingram reflected, he could tell her to take
her schooner and go to hell—there was always the
easy way out, if you wanted to quit. But it would be
an admission of defeat in just as real a sense as any
other failure to finish the job. And there was no use
getting hacked at a drunk; that was stupid. If she is
drunk, he thought. He’d given up trying to guess
that one.