arms around my neck to kiss me and I groaned again. I told her to stop there. She turned on the stove light and busied herself with a boiling kettle. Soon each of us had a giant hot toddy cradled in our paws. I had shed the cold garments for flannel PJs and a robe. Mary probed my skull first and pronounced it intact.”
'The outside anyway. There's no telling about the inside.'
'Let's look under the light… can you see, through my thinning hair, a bruise?'
'No. Whoever bopped you used something heavy and soft and your hair's not thinning.'
'Yeah, like a leather bag full of buckshot. It's also called a blackjack.'
Jim said it was madness not to call the police. Mary gripped the sides of her head with her hands, working her fingers in and out. She was about to cry. She was scared plenty.
'Jesus, Charlie, they wanted to kill you. They tried to kill you.'
'Now listen,' I said, exchanging the toddy mug for one with hot coffee, 'everybody shut up and listen. Mr. X thinks he did me in. So be it. It's my guarantee of safety, Tomorrow the two of you are going back up to Gloucester looking for me. You're going to ask around the Schooner Race… describe me to the owners and patrons. You're going to find the Scout and have the police tow it, or help you start it. Make a big deal about the fact I haven't shown up. The Gloucester police will do the rest. Sooner or later Dan Murdock and Company will get the word: I'm gone…'
'Who the hell is Dan Murdock?'
I told them, and Jim was all for making a beeline straight for him. But of course, I explained, their picking him out would refute my death, since how on earth would they have known about Murdock unless I told them?'
Jim left surreptitiously ten minutes later. After dosing, myself with aspirin, I went to bed.
It was 3:30 next afternoon when Jim dropped Mary off at the front door. She found me in the sunporch smoking a Cuesta Rey. I had slept till noon, waking only to see Mary off at ten.
'Well?'
'The entire town of Gloucester thinks you're dead… or probably dead.'
'Excellent, my love. And surely certain interested parties now know I'm dead. They're only waiting for my bloated carcass to surface in the putrid water of Gloucester Harbor. And if the body is never found, so much the better-they'll think they're home free.'
'Who are they and what are they doing?'
'That's what I'm going to find out. One thing there's no mistaking now, though, is that somebody really tried to kill me. To kill in a manner remarkably similar to the way in which Allan Hart died.' ~
'Well-you're going to forget the whole thing, Charlie, right now. We've got, with luck, twenty-five good years left on this planet. I don't want to spend mine with a bloated corpse.'
'Tell me what happened.'
'Jim and I went to that bar. One of the bartenders remembered you-he said you were a good fighter for an old guy.'
'Bless his heart.'
'So we pretended to be really upset of course… and I think we did a good job of it. The whole place is worried, and people are asking around if anyone's seen you. Then we just happened to find the Scout. It was still where you said it would be. The keys were nowhere to be found, so the police helped us get a new key-don't ask me how. It'll work, they said, at least until I can have another made. Then we went to the station and I filled out a form and answered a whole bunch of questions about your appearance, habits, etc., and now they want me to send them a picture.'
'Perfect.'
'No it isn't, you dope. They're going to get in touch with Brian Hannon.'
'Uh oh. Oh boy. I should have thought of that.'
'Yes you should have. In fact I'm surprised Brian hasn't been over here yet…'
'He may have been. I heard the doorbell once, and the phone's rung on and off too. But according to Plan A, I haven't stirred.'
'Well you'll have to talk with Brian. I think it's a crime, isn't it, to falsify a disappearance?'
'Hmmmm. I think you're right. It's certainly frowned on.'
'And what are you going to tell him?'
'I'm not sure I'm going to tell him anything, and I'll tell you why: I have-really, truly, officially-nothing to go on but observations, hunches, and my near-death by murder.'
'You've got to be kidding.'
'No: While a lot of what I've found out is suspicious, there's no hard proof of any of it. Did Allan drown accidentally or not? Who knows for sure? Are the missing Windhover and the phantom boat Penelope one and the same? Maybe. Maybe not.'
'Look, Charlie, somebody tried to kill you-'
I rubbed the bean with my cast. I was in truly great shape: broken wrist, black eye, cracked ribs, and a bruised brain bucket.
'I've been thinking that over too, Mary. Listen: just before I got mugged and dumped, I was in a bar fight. A nasty scuffle in which I figured prominently-not of my own choice-and in which several men were severely beaten and people were arrested., Don't you see how most cops would suspect that what happened forty minutes later was merely a continuation of the fight inside?'
'You mean somebody getting even with you?'
'Sure. I know I clipped somebody: a good one on the side of his head with my cast. He must not be overly fond of me.'
'Maybe he's the one who tried to kill you.'
I considered this possibility, but later rejected it. The clientele of the Schooner Race was a rough slice of humanity, but I doubted if the patrons would stoop to murder from behind. Several people had been pretty beat up in the light, but nobody was stabbed. Yet every person I saw there had a knife of some kind on his belt. No. Logic led me away from that fork in the road. On the other hand, there was Danny Murdock. Certainly he'd be interested in my demise. So would the person who paid him to falsify the carpenter's certificate. And he'd made a phone call just before the fight broke out. Then afterward lounged about in front of the bar where I'd be sure to see him. Another possible scenario began to emerge:
1. Danny Murdock is warned that somebody is inquiring around his boatyard about Penelope. The person who warns him is his wife.
2. Murdock, alarmed, gets in touch with Penelope's owner, whoever he is.
3. Owner, also alarmed, instructs. Murdock to keep mum, but to alert him if/when he ever sees or hears of me.
4. In the Schooner Race, after our initial encounter, Murdock phones the owner, who tells him to stay put in the bar so I'll stay there too, giving the owner, who could be the same nice fellow with the blackjack and the flashlight, time to arrive either in the bar or outside it, waiting for me to emerge.
5. Perhaps Murdock was to leave the Race, allowing me to follow behind, perhaps not. In any event, the fight caused me to remain in the joint long enough for Mr. X to arrive and arrange for my disposal. He must have known my description. But that wouldn't be hard: middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair, yellow jacket, thin, with left hand in cast. I would be easy to pick out, especially from a bunch of working fishermen, most of whom were young, Italian or Portuguese, or both.
The second scenario made a lot more sense, but it couldn't be pinned down for sure. No, the police could- would-say that the bopping on the head was either a robbery mugging or a revenge action from the brawl in the Schooner Race. Certainly Danny Murdock, who did not follow me outside, had an airtight alibi.
'What about Chief Hannon, Charlie?'
'Let's wait for the Gloucester police to make their preliminary inquiries and spread the word of my disappearance far and wide. Then I'll see Brian and explain. Now I have taken out grouse and pheasant, which should be almost defrosted. I'm hoping a game dinner will speed my recovery, or at least improve my spirits. And speaking of them, how about a double Tanqueray with a dash of Boissiere on the rocks, with a curl of pungent lemon rind?'
'Oh Charlie, you've got a headache already.'
'Yeah, but not for long,' I said, making for the side-board.
