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“No, just the owner registers, but the number of guests is noted. That is, the registration will show that the owner boarded the yacht, that he had two guests, three guests, four guests, or whatever the case might have been.”

I said, “All right, let’s go down to the yacht. You can register me as a guest.”

“But I have already gone through the yacht carefully, Mr. Lam. There’s no evidence there that—”

“Perhaps no evidence that you can see, but if the body of a dead man was once aboard your yacht and the police have any reason to suspect that such was the case, you’re apt to find there’s a lot of evidence they’ll uncover which you never knew existed.”

An expression of smug satisfaction flitted across his face. “There is nothing, Mr. Lam.”

“Perhaps.”

“Just what do you expect to find, Mr. Lam? What do you want to look for?”

I said, “I once attended one of Frances G. Lee’s seminars on homicide investigation.”

“I dare say you have proper professional qualifications, Mr. Lam. I fail to see why we should discuss them at this time, however.”

I went on as though there had been no interruption. “They called for a volunteer to take off his coat and roll up his sleeves. They had a test tube of human blood. They put blood smears on his hands and arms.”

“There have been no blood smears on my hands or arms,” he said with dignity.

“And then,” I said, “they told him to go wash the blood off, to use soap and water, to scrub, to do everything he could to get rid of the bloodstains.”

“Well, it washed right off, didn’t it?”

“Sure.”

“Then what?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“They went on with the class.”

“You mean they simply had him put the blood on and then wash it off?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t see your point, Lam.”

“Then the next day they asked him if he’d taken a bath, and he said he had. They asked him if he’d scrubbed his hands and arms particularly well — devoting an unusual amount of attention to them — and he admitted that he had, that he felt they might be going to play some trick on him so he’d made a good job of it.”

“Then what?”

“Nothing.”

“Lam, what are you getting at?”

“The next day they did the same thing,” I said.

“He’d taken another bath?”

“Yes.”

“And scrubbed his hands and arms?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Lam, I don’t see what you’re getting at. You’re creating a divergence and—”

“And then,” I said, “they rolled up his sleeves, put on a reagent, and every place where the blood had touched his arms there was a dark-blue stain.”

John Carver Billings sat as perfectly quiet as a mouse on a pantry shelf when a door opens. I could see him digesting that information and he didn’t like it.

Abruptly he straightened in his chair, said in that calm, precise, close-clipped banker’s voice of his, “Very well, Mr. Lam, we will now go to the yacht.”

Chapter Thirteen

Floating palaces of teakwood and mahogany, glistening with varnish, dotted with polished brass, rocked quietly at their moorings, waiting patiently for the weekends when their owners would take them out for a few hours’ recreation on the waters of the bay, or, perhaps in the case of the more venturesome, out into the pounding whitecaps beyond the heads and through to the long rollers of the surging ocean.

Some of them were so large they would require a crew to operate them; others were of a modern construction with controls so ingeniously arranged that one man could, in case of necessity, handle the boat.

It was as Billings had told me. The yacht club was virtually inaccessible to any but members. The high, steelmeshed fence was surmounted with an inclined barrier of heavy barbed wire, and at the gate there was a balanced platform. When we stepped on that a buzzer sounded, and the night gateman who was on duty gave Billings a respectful “Good evening, sir,” and handed him a book. Billings wrote his name, and, in a separate column next to the name, added the information, One guest. The watchman checked the time.

He wanted to say something else, but Billings cut him off with a curt “Some other time, Bob,” and piloted me down the long inclined ramp to the floats where we could hear the gentle lap of water and see the shimmering reflection of lights.

Our feet on the float gave back booming echoes from the water below. There was a grim, eerie atmosphere clinging to the place. Neither one of us said anything.

We came to a trim white hull surmounted by teakwood and brass. The upper cabin had square windows of heavy plate glass. There was a line of conventional round ports on the lower level.

“This is it,” Billings said. “Please keep on the mat and don’t step on the deck with those shoes. I’ll open up the cabin.”

We climbed aboard. Billings fitted a key to a padlock. A sliding panel opened up a companionway where rubber treads were bound with glistening brass. A light switch flooded a cabin into brilliance.

“It was here,” Billings said.

I soaked up the luxurious atmosphere of the cabin. It fairly reeked with money.

My feet moved over the carpet. I might have been walking on thick moss in a virgin forest. The color scheme of that cabin had been carefully carried out even to the last thread. Expensive draperies masked the interior of the cabin from the curious outer world. Chairs, books, a fine radio — every creature comfort that could possibly be packed into the confines of a yacht’s cabin.

“Where was the body?” I asked.

“As nearly as I can gather from what my son told me, it was lying here. You see, there isn’t the faintest stain in the carpet.” I got down on my hands and knees.

“You don’t need to do that,” he said. “There isn’t the faintest stain in the carpet.”

I kept crawling around. I saw that Billings was getting irritated.

“Not even the faintest stain in the carpet,” I agreed with him at length.

“You could have taken my word for that,” he said.

“There isn’t any stain in the carpet,” I went on, “because the carpet is brand new and has only recently been installed.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” he demanded. “This carpet has been here ever since—”

I shook my head and moved one of the chairs about an inch. The place where the legs of the chair had made an indentation in the deep carpet were plainly visible.

“The carpet,” I said, “has been here ever since the chair was placed there.”

“This is a very fine carpet. It returns to its original position very rapidly. You will find that—”

“I know,” I said, “but it’s impossible to completely elim- inate the marks of the chairs. You’ll notice this same thing about every one of the chairs. What’s more, you’ll notice there’s a photograph of you sitting in the cabin, reading.” I indicated a framed photograph. “You can’t tell the color of the carpet from that picture, but you certainly can see the pattern. It isn’t this one.”

There was dismay on his face as he looked at the picture.

I walked around the cabin, looking in the dark corners, running my fingers around inaccessible places.

“You’ll notice right here, Mr. Billings, there’s a very faint smear here where something has been wiped with