Free The Sailcloth Shroud by Charles Williams Page A

morning,” a musical voice said. “Hotel Warwick.”
    “Do you have a Paula Stafford registered?” I asked.
    “One moment, please. . . . Yes, sir. . . .”
    “Would you ring her, please?”
    “I’m sorry, sir. Her line is busy.”
    Probably trying to get me at the boatyard, I thought. I sprang up and began throwing on my clothes. It was only three blocks to the Warwick. The traffic lights were blinking amber, and the streets were empty except for a late bus or two and a Sanitation Department truck. I made it to the Warwick in three minutes. The big ornate lobby was at the bottom of its day’s cycle; all the shops were closed, and some of the lights were turned off around the outlying areas with only the desk and switchboard and one elevator still functioning, like the nerve centers of some complex animal asleep. I headed for the house phones, over to the right of the desk.
    She answered almost immediately, as if she had been standing beside the instrument. “Yes?”
    “Miss Stafford?” I asked.
    “Yes,” she said eagerly. “Who is it?”
    “Stuart Rogers. I’m down in the lobby—”
    “Oh, thank Heavens!” She sounded slightly hysterical. “I’ve been trying to get you at that shipyard, but the man said you were gone, he didn’t know where. But never mind. Where are you?”
    “Down in the lobby,” I repeated.
    “Come on up! Room 1508.”
    It was to the right, the boy said. I stepped out of the elevator and went along a hushed and deep-carpeted corridor. When I knocked, she opened the door immediately. The first thing that struck me about her were her eyes. They were large and deeply blue, with long dark lashes, but they were smudged with sleeplessness and jittery with some intense emotion too long sustained.
    “Come in, Mr. Rogers!” She stepped back, gave me a nervous but friendly smile that was gone almost before it landed, and shook a pill out of the bottle she was holding in her left hand. She was about thirty-five, I thought. She had dark hair that was a little mussed, as if she’d been running her hands through it, and was wearing a blue dressing gown, belted tightly about her waist. Paula Stafford was a very attractive woman, aside from an impression that if you dropped something or made a sudden move she might jump into the overhead light fixture.
    I came on into the room and closed the door while she grabbed up a tumbler of water from the table on her left and swallowed the pill. Also on the table was a burning cigarette in a long holder, balanced precariously on the edge, another bottle of pills of a different color, and an unopened pint bottle of Jack Daniel’s. To my left was the partly opened door of the bathroom. Beyond her was a large double bed with a persimmon-colored spread. The far wall was almost all window, covered with a drawn Venetian blind and persimmon drapes. Light came from the bathroom door and from the floor lamp beside the dresser, which was beyond the foot of the bed, to my left. A dress, apparently the one she’d been wearing, was thrown across the bed, along with a half slip, her handbag, and a pair of sun glasses, while her suitcase was open and spilling lingerie and stockings on the luggage stand at the foot of it. It was hard to tell whether she’d taken up residence in the room or had been lobbed into it just before she went off.
    “Tell me about him!” she demanded. “Do you think he’s all right?” Then, before I could open my mouth, she broke off with another nervous smile and indicated the armchair near the foot of the bed, at the same time grabbing up the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and starting to fumble with the seal. “Forgive me. Won’t you sit down? And let me pour you a drink.”
    I lifted the bottle of whisky out of her hands before she could drop it, and placed it on the table. “Thanks, I don’t want a drink. But I would like some information.”
    She didn’t even hear me, apparently, or notice that I’d taken the whisky away. She went