Singing in the Shrouds [antikvár]

chapter one Prologue with Corpse In the Pool of London and farther east all througli the dockyards the fog lay heavy. Lights sw^am like moons in their ov^^n halos.^ Insignificant buildings, being simplified, became dramatic. Along the Cape Line Company's stretch of wbarfege^the ships at anchor loomed up portentously: Cape St. Vincent., Glasgow. Cape Horn, London. Cape Farewell, Glasgow. The cranes that served these ships lost their heads in the fog. Their gestures as they bowed and turned became pontifical. ^ Beyond their illuminated places the dockyards vanished. The gang loading the Cape Farewell moved from light into nothingness. Noises were subdued and isolated and a man's cough close at hand was more startling than the rattle of winches. Police Constable Moir, on duty until midnight, walked in and out of shadows. He breathed the soft cold smell of wet wood and heard the sla^ of the night t^^against the wharvesj~ Acres and acres of shipping and forests of cranes lay around him. Ships, he thought romantically, were, in a sort of way, like little worlds. Tied up to bollards and lying quiet enough but soon to sail over the watery globe as lonely as the planets wandering in the skies. He would have liked to travel. He ^olaced himself with thoughts of matrimony^, promotion and, when the beat was getting him down a bit, of the Police Medal and sudden glory. At a II