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Caribbean Sea.
The thing that puzzles me the most is what the hell he was
doing on that boat of yours in the first place. The only way you can
account for that money of Keefer s is that he stole it from Baxter.
So if Baxter was running from a bunch of hoodlums and had four
thousand in cash, why would he try to get away on a boat that
probably makes five miles an hour downhill? Me, I d take
something faster.
I don t know, I said. It gets crazier every time I look at it. The
only thing I m sure of any more is that I wish to Christ I d never
heard of Baxter or Keefer.
Okay. There s nothing more we can do now. I ve got a hunch
the FBI is going to want to take a long, slow look at this, but they
can pick you up in the morning. We ll send you back to your boat
in a squad car. And if you have to go chasing around town at night,
for God s sake take a taxi.
Sure, I said. They struck me as being scared to death of taxi
drivers.
They re scared of witnesses, wise guy. They all are. And you ve
always got a better chance where they can t get a good look at
you.
It was 12:20 a.m. when the squad car dropped me off before the
boatyard gate and drove away. I glanced nervously up and down
the waterfront with its shadows and gloomy piers and tried to
shrug off the feeling of being watched. It was as peaceful as the
open sea, with nobody in sight anywhere except old Ralph, the
twelve-to-eight watchman, tilted back in a chair just inside the
gate reading a magazine in his hot pool of light. He glanced
curiously at the police car and at my muddy shoes, but said
nothing. I said good night, and went on down through the yard. As
The Sailcloth Shroud 43
I stepped aboard the Topaz and walked aft to the cockpit, I
reached in my pocket for the key. Then I saw I wasn t going to
need it.
The hatch was open and the padlock was gone, the hasp neatly
cut through, apparently with bolt cutters. I looked down into the
dark interior of the cabin, and felt the hair raise along the back of
my neck. I listened intently, standing perfectly still, but knew that
was futile. If he was still down there, he d heard me already. Well,
I could find out. The light switch was right beside the ladder,
accessible from here. I stepped to one side of the hatch, reached
down silently, and flipped it on. Nothing happened. I peered in. He
was gone. But he d been there. The whole cabin looked as if it had
been stirred with a giant spoon.
The Sailcloth Shroud 44
6
The bunks had been torn apart. The bedding was piled on the
settee and in the sink. My suitcase and duffel bag were emptied
into the bunks, the drawers beneath them dumped upside down on
the deck. Food lockers were emptied and ransacked. Charts,
nautical almanacs, azimuth tables, magazines, and books were
scattered everywhere. I stared at it in mounting rage. A hell of a
security force they had here, one creaky old pensioner sitting up
there calmly reading a magazine while thieves tore your boat
apart. Then I realized it wasn t his fault, nor Otto s. Whoever had
done this hadn t come in the gate, and was no ordinary sneak
thief. The watchmen made the round of the yard once every hour
with a clock, but there was no station out here on the pier. I
grabbed a flashlight and ran back on deck.
The Topaz lay near the outer end of the pier, bow in and
starboard side to. There was a light at the shoreward end of the
pier, but out here it was somewhat shadowy, especially aft. The
marine railway and the shrimp hoat that was on it blocked the
view from the gate. There was a high wire fence, topped with
barbed wire, on each side of the yard, so no one could go in or out
afoot except through the gate, but the bayfront was wide open, of
course, to anyone with a boat.
I threw the beam of the flashlight over the port side, and found it
almost immediately. Freshly painted white topsides are both the
joy and the curse of a yachtsman s life; they re beautiful and
dazzling as a fresh snowfall, and just as easily marred. Right under
the cockpit coaming was a slight dent, with green paint in it. Skiff,
I thought, or a small outboard; it had bumped as it came alongside.
If they had a motor, they had probably cut it some distance out and
sculled in. Probably happened on Otto s watch, right after I left.
That meant, then, that there were at least four of them. But what
were they looking for?
I was just straightening up when I saw something else. I stopped
the light and looked again to make sure. There was another dent,
about ten feet forward of this one. What the hell, had they come
alongside at twenty knots and ricocheted? I stepped forward and
The Sailcloth Shroud 45
knelt to have a closer look. There was a smear of yellow paint in
this one. Two boats? That made no sense at all. One of the dents
must have been made before, I thought. But it couldn t have been
very long ago, because it was only Thursday I d painted the
topsides.
Well, it didn t make any difference. The point was that they d
been here, and they could come back. If I wanted to get any sleep
I d better move to a hotel; this place was too easy to get into. I
went below and straightened up the mess. So far as I could tell,
nothing was missing. I changed into a lightweight suit the only
one I had with me put on some more shoes, and packed a bag
with the rest of my gear. I gathered up the sextant and
chronometer, the only valuable items aboard, and went up to the
gate.
The old man was shocked and apologetic and a little frightened
when I told him about it. Why, I didn t hear a thing, Mr. Rogers,
he said.
It probably happened on Otto s shift, I said. But it doesn t
matter; nobody would have heard them, anyway. Just keep this
chronometer and sextant in your shack till Froelich gets here in
the morning. Froelich was the yard foreman. Turn them over to
him, and tell him to put a new hasp and padlock on that hatch. At
yard expense, incidentally. And tell him not to let anybody down in
the cabin until the police have a chance to check it for
fingerprints. I ll be back around nine o clock.
Yes, sir, he said. I ll sure do that. And I m awful sorry about it,
Mr. Rogers.
Forget it, I told him. I called the police and reported it, with a
request that they notify Willetts when he came on shift again. This
had to be explained, because Willetts was in Homicide and had
nothing to do with burglary. We got it straightened out at last, and
I called a cab. The driver recommended the Bolton as a good
commercial hotel.
I watched the empty streets as we drove through the warehouse
and industrial district. No one followed us. Even the thought of
violence seemed unreal. The Bolton was in the heart of the
downtown business district, about three blocks from the Warwick.
It was air-conditioned.
I registered, and followed the boy through the deserted corridors
of two a.m., reminded of the description of a hotel in one of
Faulkner s novels. Tiered cubicles of sleep. The room was a
cubicle, all right, but it had a night latch and a chain on the door.
The Sailcloth Shroud 46
When the boy had gone I slipped the chain in place, took a shower,
and lay down on the bed with a cigarette.
Who was Baxter?
He s a legacy, I thought. An incubus I inherited, with an assist
from Keefer. Baxter to Keefer to Rogers it sounded like the infield
of a sandlot baseball team. Why had he come aboard the Topaz?
He d obviously lied about the job and about wanting to save plane
fare home. He hadn t struck me as a liar, either; aloof, maybe, and
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