Sailor lost all his family during the earthquake of Vanyambadi, India, in 1921. At sixteen he joined the British Merchant Navy and led an adventurous life that took him over most of the Asian and African coasts. After the war he settled in Rome where he married Martha Egan in 1949. William Sailor is the author of numerous books on travel and adventure. His best known work is a novel, No Home for Strangers.
"Did you see that, Phil?" Robby McNutting said over the luncheon table. "It's this morning's Trib. He looked just exactly like you. My word, I've never seen such a likeness in all my life. Look at the forehead, generous like yours; the short cropped hair, the questioning eyes. Must be dark, like yours. The long straight nose, and the folds down the mouth, deeper on one side. Look, he even draws one shoulder up like you. Your mirror image." And he handed the page to Phil.
The paper trembled in Phil's hand so he put it down before him on the table and wiped over it with the back of his spoon as though to flatten it, or to see whether it was really there. Jim Wilder pushed his chair round the corner of the table, to look at the picture too, and Ted Connally, on the opposite side, got up, walked round, leaned his arms on the back of Phil's chair, and looked over his shoulder.
"Boy," Jim Wilder said, "it's almost uncanny."
"Phil, old fellow," Ted Connally guffawed, slapping him on the shoulder, "how does it feel to have been murdered?"
"Oh, come on," Robby McNutting said helpfully, "you can't tell from a telephoto. Maybe the man looked altogether different."
Phil kept staring at the picture and the story. "And I knew it, I knew it, I knew it all the time," he mumbled. Then he poured down his Martini, and McNutting's and Wilder's and what was left of Ted Connally's second, and staggered out of the Club.
Rome, December 7. Theophil Thorndike, a Chicago banker, arrived here today by plane from New York. He claimed to be the twin brother of William Sailor who was murdered by his wife on December 3. Thomdike said he had documents to prove the relationship. People who knew William Sailor said the similarity to Thorndike was astounding. Thorndike hired a lawyer to defend Mrs. Sailor and obtained her transfer, pending trial, to a private room at the sanatorium Villa Igea.
They certainly had explained my coming. But probably she had not listened. She was easily distracted. When I opened the door she seemed utterly unprepared.
She stared at me, buried her face in her hands, then stared again, forlorn. She jerked up from the red upholstered armchair in which she had been resting and retreated towards the red-framed window, groping blindly backwards with her arms, always staring at me, through me, at the red rousing wall. She leaned against the window, her palms cooling on the glass pane. Her black open hair fell over her black shoulders. Her face was pale and contorted. A witch condemned to the stake, a poor sick suffering girl. "Go away," she hissed, "please go away and leave me alone."
"How do you do, Martha." The calm swing of a trained business voice sounded utterly out of place, even to me. "I am Will's brother Phil Thorndike. From Chicago. Didn't they tell you?" There was not another sound to be gotten out of her. She stood there black and twisted, her arms spread out, a barren tree against the darkling sky. A quarter of an hour, perhaps half an hour, and night fell. I stole towards the door and slipped out.
The next morning he brought her roses and candies.
"Hello, Martha, you look fine today. Had a good rest? It was cold in Chicago when I left, you know; the wings of the plane were heavy with ice. We had a hard time taking off. Didn't he ever tell you he had a brother? He probably didn't remember. I couldn't either, but then I knew it even though he ceased to be real long ago, in a certain way. Dad kept talking about him and mother, and there were pictures and the baby book. I'll show them to you. Look, I bought a copy of No Home for Strangers. Started reading it. He must have been a tough guy. You know, I wanted to be a writer, too. Took a couple of courses in creative writing at college. But then, I met—Martha—my wife's name was Martha too—and then I got a job at the Morris Trust Company and went to Lass School. I guess that didn't leave much time for anything else. Why don't you try these candies? You smoke? You know, I don't know a soul here in Rome. It's funny. But there are American bars all over the place. Hot dogs deluxe—the Romans take them so seriously and they're terribly fashionable. But I don't like it here. People staring at me. `That must be William Sailor's brother'—do I really look so much like Will?"
"Why don't you shut up?"
"Hello Martha. Feeling better today?"
"Say, how long are you going to hang around here?"
"Oh, Martha, I want to stay as long as necessary. I want to help you.... I've finished Will's book. Do you like it, Martha?"
"I hate it. And I hate Will. I hate both of you. Oh, don't go! Please don't go away."
Martha wept, fitfully and fearfully. Her face on her arm on the red polished hospital table. Her back shaking. Tears clogging her nose and choking her throat. The world, coming to an end with each long pressed sob, vanished trembling behind the wall of tears. The void closed in, tightening on her deluged temples, her squeezed lungs. She wept on Phil's hand stretched to stroke soothingly her jerking shoulders. "Poor girl," he said. "I know it. I know it all. Cry it out. Cry it all out of your system."
She stroked his face, blindly, gratefully.
"The scar," she said, and had suddenly stopped weeping. "The scar on your cheek, on your right cheek." She looked at him in new horror.
"Nothing. An accident. A crash. Three months ago. It's all healed now."
Martha: Good morning Phil. How nice of you to come so early.
Phiclass="underline" Had a good rest?
Martha: Just fine. Thanks. And you?
Phiclass="underline" I got up early and took a walk in the city.
Martha: It's a wonderful city.
Phiclass="underline" People sitting outdoors in the caf6s.
Martha: In Via Veneto.
Phiclass="underline" In December. In Chicago it's blizzards.
Martha: And here the light is lambent on the red stones.
Phiclass="underline" You just walk for hours, just walk and get lost.
Martha: One discovery opening into another.
Phiclass="underline" Don't you love it?
Martha: I loved it.
Phiclass="underline" How long have you been living here, Martha?
Martha: Seven, almost eight years. It's almost eight years.
Phiclass="underline" Met Will in Rome?
Martha: At Dermott McDermott's.
Phiclass="underline" You know Dermott?
Martha. Of course I do. I was staying with him, and you know Freddy.
Phiclass="underline" Freddy? It's years and years.
Martha: He pays him ninety dollars a month.
Phiclass="underline" Just for the fun of sleeping with him.
Martha: Freddy is a terrible mess.
Phiclass="underline" I don't see what Dermott finds in him.
Martha: Sometimes he won't speak to Dermott all day.
Phiclass="underline" I think he hates Dermott. I think he will kill Dermott some day.