One
It took the message over a week to catch up with him because after
he had finished the job in the sierra he went over into the jungles of
the lower Ucayali to hunt jaguars. When he had read it he came up
out of South America traveling very fast, a big, hard-shouldered
young man in an ill-fitting suit, his face cooked dark by the sun and
his hair badly in need of cutting. He would have had time to get a
shave between planes in Miami, but he spent the time instead in a
stifling telephone booth making one long-distance call after another,
relentlessly shoving quarters into a slot and rasping questions over
thousands of miles of wire while the cold ball of fear grew heavier
inside him. On the third day after leaving the little town in the
Peruvian jungle he walked up the steps of the police station in
Waynesport, on the Gulf Coast of the United States.
It was a little after eight of a hot, breathless morning, and he
couldn’t remember when he had slept. It was the twenty-first of
August, and since the tenth of the month his sister, who was Vickie
Shane McHugh, the radio and television actress, had been in the
Waynesport jail, charged with the murder of her husband.
The Chief wouldn’t be in until around nine, the desk man said, but
he led him down a dim hallway to the office of Lieutenant Wayland.
The man behind the desk was big across the shoulders, with a heavy
neck and a graying shock of tough, wiry hair. Sharp brown eyes sized
him up as he came into the room.
He stood up and held out his hand. “Reno? Oh, yes. You talked to
the Chief yesterday.”
Go Home, Stranger — 2
“When can I see her?” Reno asked abruptly.
Wayland sat down and bit the end off a small cigar. He leaned back
in his chair. “This morning. Incidentally, how does it happen her name
is Shane, if she’s your sister?”
“Professional name,” Reno said impatiently. “Actually, it was our
mother’s. But never mind all that. I’m still trying to find out what
happened. And why you’re holding her.”
“You look tough enough to take it straight,” Wayland said,
appraising him thoughtfully. “It’s simple enough. McHugh was
murdered. And the evidence says she did it.”
“But she says she didn’t?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I’ll buy her, and you buy the evidence. But just what
happened?”
“I guess you knew they were separated,” Wayland said. “That’s the
first item.”
Reno said, “They were always separating, or separated, or making
up. Living with either one of ‘em would be like trying to set up
housekeeping in a revolving door. They both had more talent and
temperament than they needed, but they were crazy about each
other. They always made up.”
“The trial will be held in court,” Wayland said. “Not here. You want
to hear what happened, or do you want to make a speech?”
Reno lit a cigarette and sat down, hunching forward in the chair.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Give me the whole story. I’ll try not to butt in.”
“It’s all right,” Wayland replied. “As you probably know by now,
McHugh was down here alone, on business. Had been for five days.
He was trying to run down some guy named—I’ve forgotten now, but
it doesn’t matter. Anyway, to get to the night he was killed, your
sister showed up unexpectedly. Didn’t wire she was coming, as far as
we know now. What she keeps telling us is that she was driving from
New York to the Coast, and since she knew he was down here she
decided to surprise him by dropping in to see him. And apparently she
did. Surprise him, I mean. They’d been separated about four months,
and she’d been in some television work in New York. So she arrived at
the Boardman Hotel here, where McHugh was staying, around
midnight. McHugh wasn’t in his room. But while she was calling from
the desk, he came in from the street. With this other girl.”
Reno’s eyes jerked upward and he stared at the Lieutenant. “So
that’s the idea? You’re all wrong. I’ve known Mac all my life, and he
Go Home, Stranger — 3
wasn’t that kind. There hasn’t been any playing around with babes
since he was married.”
Wayland shrugged. “You asked me what happened, and I’m telling
you. McHugh’s wife drops in unexpectedly and finds him wandering
into the hotel at midnight with a stray babe, and about an hour later
McHugh is dead. Anyway, the clerk didn’t hear anything that was
said, except that there didn’t appear to be any row to speak of, and
the other girl shoved off. McHugh and your sister went up to his
room.
“At five minutes past one, some guest of the fourteenth floor called
the desk and said he’d heard something like a shot and a scream in
the next room. The clerk sent the house detective up there on the
double. The door was closed and locked, but he could hear something
that sounded like moaning inside, so he passkeyed his way in.
“McHugh was lying on the floor and she was down beside him with
his head in her arms, rocking and whimpering, and then she passed
out. The detective threw a couple of sheets over them—over her
because she didn’t have on enough clothes to wad a popgun, and over
McHugh because he was dead.
“He called us. We had some men over there before she snapped out
of it. When she did come around she was unraveling all over the place
and not much of what she said made any sense. She finally calmed
down enough to tell us that she'd been in the bathroom changing into
a nightgown when she’d heard voices out in the room, as if somebody
had come in to see McHugh. She didn’t look out, she said, because
she wasn’t dressed. Then she heard the shot, and she screamed. She
ran out of the bathroom, and just as she did she heard the door going
out into the corridor slam shut.
“McHugh had been shot in the back of the neck, just at the base of
the skull—with a twenty-five automatic, we found out as soon as we
got a look at the slug. The house detective didn’t see anybody else in
the corridors, and nobody came down in the elevators.”
Reno drew a hand savagely across his face and gestured as he
hitched around in the chair. “But how about the gun? There must
have been fingerprints on it.”
“We didn’t find the gun until after ten o’clock, and when we did
there weren’t any fingerprints on it. There wasn’t much of anything
on it. It was—or had been—one of those junior-miss gimcracks with
pearl handles, and the pieces of it were lying beside some garbage
cans in the alley next to the hotel. The alley is paved, and it was
Go Home, Stranger — 4
fourteen floors down from McHugh’s room. They don’t make those
kiss-me-quick guns for that kind of duty.”
Well, I had to be sure, Reno thought, conscious of the cold void
inside him. It was the same way Carstairs had said it was. It was
dynamite.
Wayland was looking at him with something like regret. “I’m sorry.
But you see how it is. Those hotel windows are closed all the time in
summer, because the place is air-conditioned. And that one was still
closed when our men got there. It would have had to be opened, the
gun heaved put, and then closed again. And she says she came
running out of the bathroom as soon as she heard the shot, and that
the man she says was in there was already going out the door into the
corridor. So, by her own story, nobody would have had time to throw
that gun out except her.”
“But wait a minute,” Reno said, shaking his head. “Can’t you see
she has to be telling the truth? She’s not stupid. Do you think that if
she was going to lie about it she'd make up a dumb story like that?”
“Yes. I know. We’ve thought about that. But don’t forget that your
sister is high-strung and hotheaded, and that when she told us this
she was just coming out of a faint and was on the edge of hysteria.
She said the first thing she could think of, and afterward she had to
stick to it. I’ve been in police work a long time, and I’ve never seen a
woman on a rampage with a gun yet who seemed to have much logic
about it.”
“Then she did it, as far as you’re concerned?” Reno said harshly.
“You can quit looking. You’ve got it made.”
Wayland started to make some quick retort, but checked himself.
“Cool off, Reno,” he said without emotion. “I know how you feel. But
they don’t pay me to draw conclusions, or prosecute anybody. That’s
up to the District Attorney. I'm just supposed to dig up the facts.”
“Well, what have you dug up about this guy Mac was looking for?”
“There isn’t anything there, as far as I can see. McHugh was trying
to find him, and apparently didn’t. People seldom get shot for that,
except maybe in Russia.”
Reno shook his head, dissatisfied. “It’s not that simple. There’s
something screwy about it. In the first place, Mac wasn’t a gumshoe
or a skip-tracer; he was a lawyer, and a damned smart one. He
wouldn’t have been down here playing cops-and-robbers like some
kid.”
Go Home, Stranger — 5
“I wouldn’t know,” Wayland said wearily. “All I know is that he was.
Bannerman, over in Missing Persons, remembered him. McHugh
came into Headquarters the first day he was in town, trying to run
down this—this— Oh, what the hell was his name? Wait a minute.” He
paused, shuffling through the papers on his desk. “Here it is. Conway.
Rupert Conway.’ McHugh was trying to locate this guy—apparently
for the guy’s wife—but didn’t have any picture of him, only a
description and the dope on his car. There was one funny thing about
it.” Wayland stopped and frowned thoughtfully at the cigar smoke.
“What was that?” Reno asked.
“It was a goofy sort of coincidence. We had the car. Conway’s car, I
mean. Traffic Detail had had it in the garage for two weeks. Picked it
up in a tow-away zone.”
“But you don’t think it had any connection with Mac’s being killed?”
Reno insisted.
Wayland dismissed the idea with a curt “No.”
Reno was silent for a moment, moodily watching smoke drift
through the shaft of sunlight slanting in through the window and
falling across the desk. So this was all there was to it. This was the
way it ended. The best friend he’d ever had was dead, and they could
send Vickie to the penitentiary or to her death for killing him.
His face hardened with anger. Maybe they’d better think again
about that. It was too simple, too pat, and somewhere the man who’d
killed Mac was smiling about it. He crushed out his cigarette in a tray
and stood up.
“Can I see her now?” he asked.
* * *
It was a bare, harshly lighted room without windows. Reno prowled
restlessly up and down, dead tired but unable to stop or sit still. At
last he heard footsteps in the corridor, and turned.
The door opened and Vickie was standing in it, with the detective
behind her. She was as straight and lovely as ever, even in the plain
tailored suit and wearing no makeup. She was tall and strikingly
blonde, with deep blue eyes that were very tired.
“Hello, Pete,” she said calmly. “Have you got a cigarette?”
Maybe we all should have had dramatic training, he thought. We
haven’t seen each other for two years and she’s in jail charged with
killing Mac, so I’ve just been out to buy some smokes.
Go Home, Stranger — 6
She stepped across the room and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
They sat down across from each other at the table while the detective
leaned back against the wall in a chair and watched them. Reno gave
her a cigarette and held the match.
“Thanks, Pete,” she said. “It’s an awful home-coming for you, isn’t
it? I’m sorry.”
They understood each other, and always had. He was four years
older than she was, and there had always been something fiercely
protective and very proud in his relationship with her. They had been
alone since their mother had died while Vickie was still in high school,
and he had sent her to college and drama school out of his earnings
as a construction engineer in Arabia and Alaska and South America.
Tough and hard-bitten himself, with scant social grace and little talent
except for the clear-cut and hard-cornered realities of the man’s
world he lived in, he was intensely devoted to her—as he had been to
Mac—for the qualities the two of them had in such abundance,
personality and talent and a sort of heartwarming charm. And he
knew her well enough to know that right now he was seeing another
quality, which was bravery—or, as he would have expressed it
succinctly, guts. She was ‘walking very carefully along the ragged
edge of horror and letting none of it show. I’ve got to make it as easy
as I can for her, he thought; and still I’ve got to ask her about it.
“All right, Vick,” he said gently. “Tell me.”
“I think they’ve been reading detective stories,” she said. “They’re
under the impression I came here to kill M-Mac.” The only outward
sign of what was inside her was that almost imperceptible tremor in
pronouncing the name.
“I’ve already talked to Lieutenant Wayland,” Reno said. “And to
Carstairs, in San Francisco. So we can skip all the obvious stuff. What
I want to know is whether Mac told you why he was down here. And
did he say who that girl was?”
“He was looking for somebody. A man named—I’ve forgotten, Pete.
He told me the man’s name, but I didn’t pay much attention.”
“The man’s name was Conway,” Reno said. “I know that much. But
did Mac say why he was doing a crazy thing like that?”
“No,” she said helplessly. “We didn’t talk about it much. I do know,
though, that he had something on his mind. Oh, of course, we were
both delirious about being together again and full of plans for when
we got back to San Francisco, but you know how Mac is when he’s
working on something—he’s all wound up in it.” She stopped suddenly
Go Home, Stranger — 7
and looked at him and they could both feel the horror of it, of that slip
of the tongue that had referred to Mac in the present tense.
“But about the girl,” Reno cut in, to cover it. “Did he say who she
was, and why she was there?”
“Yes.” She nodded, her face very white. “It was about this—what’shis-
name—Conway. She had something to tell him, or had already told
him, and they were going into the hotel bar. Mac wanted to write it
down.”
“Did Mac introduce you?”
“Yes.”
“What was her name?”
She stared at him and sighed. “Pete, I don’t know. Even if I had paid
any attention at the time—”
“Could you describe her?”
“Pete, dear, any woman can always describe any other woman she
sees with her husband. But, for the love of heaven, do we have to talk
about her? That’s what the police have been harping on until I’m half
crazy. She didn’t have anything to do with it. The person I heard
talking to Mac while I was in the bathroom was a man.”
He shook his head. “You don’t get what I’m driving at, Vick. Of
course she didn’t have anything to do with it— at least, not in the way
they think. But look. Somebody killed Mac; and he didn’t have any
enemies as far as either of us knows, or as far as Carstairs knows. So
the only thing in God’s world we’ve got to go on is this stupid Conway
deal. And she must have been mixed up in that some way. What did
she look like?”
“She was about twenty-five, I should say. Very striking brunette, in
summer clothes. Cottons, you know—white.”
“Never mind what she was wearing,” Reno said. “It’s been ten days,
and she just might have changed into something else.”
“Oh. Well, she was about five feet six, I’d guess, good figure, dark
brown eyes, jet-black hair cut short and curled close to her head,
something like the poodle haircut—or did they have that in the Andes?
She had a dimple in her chin, and a good sun tan. Educated, good
voice very close to contralto, no Southern drawl. Poised.”
Reno nodded thoughtfully. “In other words, a dish. A girl people
would notice. But why haven’t the police been able to find her?”
She sighed. “I don’t know whether the fantastic noodle-heads have
even tried. Or if they have, they’ve been looking in the wrong places.
Go Home, Stranger — 8
Their idea is she was some floozie Mac picked up in a bar. She wasn’t,
quite obviously.”
“O.K,” Reno said, with more assurance than he felt. “It’s something
to start with. But now—did you get even a glimpse of the guy? I mean,
when you ran out of the bathroom?”
She shook her head wearily. “No. That’s the horrible part of it, Pete.
He was right there within ten feet of me, and by the time I got out
into the room he was gone. But maybe I wouldn’t have seen what he
looked like, anyway. I was looking at Mac. He was crumpled, lying—”
Her voice started to break up on her. She stopped and took a deep
breath, looking away from him. When she turned back she had
everything under control again and she went on calmly, “Mac was
dead. That’s what I was trying to say.?
“But you did hear them talking? Before, I mean?”
“Yes. But I wouldn’t recognize his voice. It was only a mumble.”
“You didn’t hear even one word that was said?”
She put both hands up alongside her face with an infinite weariness.
“Pete, I've gone back and forth through it a thousand times. And I
don’t think so. I keep having an impression I heard somebody say
something that sounded like ‘counsel,’ but it could be just
imagination, because Mac was an attorney.”
“But nothing else?”.
“No. Not a thing. If I even heard that.”
Reno was silent for a moment. He was scared, and trying not to
show it. There wasn’t anything here to go on except the thin lead of
that girl, and the police hadn’t come up with her after ten days. He
reached out and put a big, sunburned hand over one of hers, and as
he did so he remembered the detective. He turned, and the man was
watching them unwaveringly.
“What about those attorneys Carstairs arranged for you when he
came down?” he asked. “Durand and Gage, isn’t it? What are they
doing?”
“Being obscenely cheerful, most of the time, just like doctors. Pete,
thank God you woolly-eared construction stiffs don’t have to take a
course in Bubbling Optimism when you’re going to school.”
“We’ll find out who did it; Vick.”
“Is this your bedside manner?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s a hunch. There’s something about this
Conway thing that smells. If I can’t tout the police onto him, I’m going
Go Home, Stranger — 9
to buy a piece of him myself. I want to have a nice, long talk with Mr.
Conway.”
She gestured hopelessly. “But, Pete, Mac used to be in the FBI. And
if he couldn’t find him—”
“Uh-uh,” Reno said. “I think that’s where everybody’s missed the
boat.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mac did: But he got in front of him.”
Go Home, Stranger — 10
Two
It had sounded brave and convincing enough there at the jail while he
was trying to give her something to cling to, but where did he go from
here? Suppose it was Conway? And suppose Mac had found him?
Everything he had learned was gone now, into the grave with Mac
himself.
He had come back to the hotel, knowing he had to get some sleep
before long or collapse, but it hadn’t been any good. Every time his
eyes closed he started seeing black headlines that screamed, “Actress
Found Guilty in Slaying.” He stopped his pacing up and down the
room and wearily ground another cigarette into the tray.
He reached for the telephone again. Two previous attempts had
been fruitless. Carstairs was in court, the girl had said.
He jiggled the hook. “Operator, will you try that call to San
Francisco again? Person-to-person to Carstairs of Carstairs and
McHugh. . . . Oh. Good. Yes, I’ll hold on.”
This time his luck was better. In a moment he heard the familiar
voice on the other end. He and Carstairs and Mac had all gone to
college together. “Hello, Dick?” he said. “This is Pete Reno, in
Waynesport.”
’Oh, Pete. I was just about to call you,” Carstairs replied. “Has
anything new turned up?” Carstairs had flown to Waynesport when it
happened. He had arranged for attorneys for Vickie and had taken
Mac’s body back to San Francisco for burial after the inquest.
Go Home, Stranger — 11
“No,” Reno said. “Maybe they figure they’ve got it made. They’ve
got her.”
“Pete, we’ve known each other too long for me to try to kid you.
They’ve got a case. A hell of a case. A D.A.’s dream.”
“Except that she didn’t do it.”
“Check. But that’s because we know her. They don’t. All they’ve got
is the only thing they’re supposed to pay any attention to, and that’s
the evidence. Motive, for one thing. And she was there in the room
with him, and can’t prove anybody else was.
“I know they’ve got a case. If they didn’t, I’d get some sleep. But I
called about something else.”
“What?”
“Conway. We find him, we’ve got the guy who killed Mac.”
“You’ve been going to movies.”
“No,” Reno said. “Listen. Conway didn’t need looking for because
he didn’t know the way home. Any filling station would give him a
road map. So maybe he didn’t want to be found. And suppose Mac
was getting too warm.”
“But, dammit, Pete, Conway wasn’t a gangster.”
“Well, what was he?”
“Frankly, you’ve got me there. I never met him. But I know his wife,
and she’s no gun moll. Very wealthy, in a quiet sort of way, cultured,
old California family—that sort of thing.”
“I’m not talking about Conway’s wife. Maybe she was Joan of Arc, or
Little Bo Peep. I’m talking about Conway himself. What do you know
about him?”
“Well,” Carstairs said hesitantly, “not too much. They’d been
married only a few months, I understand. He was her second
husband.”
“All right. But just why was Mac looking for him?”
“Because she was paying us.”
“I thought you guys were running a law office. When’d you go into
the keyhole and dictaphone business?”
“We didn’t. This was a sort of special deal. You see, she knew Mac
had been in the FBI and was a trained bloodhound, and she insisted.
We’d done quite a bit of legal work for her and hoped to do more in
the future, and as I say, she’s well to do. You just don’t brush off that
kind when you’re trying to build up a legal practice.”
Go Home, Stranger — 12
“Why didn’t she go to the police?”
“Well, there could be a number of reasons for that. A desire to avoid
publicity and embarrassment, for one thing. She’s a shy type. Maybe
she just didn’t want to face them, and the inference they would draw
—that her husband was running out on her.”
“You think that’s all?” Reno asked, conscious of bitter
disappointment.
“Actually, I couldn’t say. You see, Mac handled the whole thing. But
wouldn’t that be your guess?”
“I suppose so,” Reno said wearily. “But listen, Dick. I’ve got to have
something to start with. I’ll go off my rocker, just sitting around here,
and Conway’s the only thing I’ve got. So will you get hold of her and
see what you can find out? I mean, any reports Mac might have sent
her . . .”
“She wouldn’t go for that,” Carstairs protested. “I mean, the thing
was confidential, or she wouldn’t have come to us in the first place.”
“But for God’s sake, Dick, will you try?” Reno said desperately. “Ask
her. Get a description. Find out why Mac was looking in Waynesport,
of all places, Find out anything you can. And any way you can. Tell her
I’ll try to find Conway for her.”
“All right, Pete, I’ll try. But I can’t promise anything.”
“Good. Now you’re talking. Call back in an hour. Boardman Hotel.”
“Roger.”
It was the longest hour of his life, sitting there staring at the
telephone, and when it did ring at last he looked at his watch and
noted, without believing it, that it hadn’t been an hour at all. It had
been twenty minutes.
“San Francisco is calling,” the operator said. “Go ahead, please.”
“Yes,” he said, prodded with impatience. “Yes. Dick? Is that you?”
“Carstairs here,” the voice said on the other end of the line. “Pete,
I’m afraid I’ve got bad news for you.”
“What’s that?” Reno barked.
“Mrs. Conway. She’s disappeared.”
“What!”
“She’s left town. And the manager of the apartment house says she
didn’t leave any word as to where she was going or how long she’d be
gone.”
Go Home, Stranger — 13
He could feel the hope ooze out of him. He sat down on the side of
the bed. “Oh, no,” he said.
After he had hung up he sat for a long time staring dumbly out the
window. They’d had one thin lead to work on, and now that was gone.
The police hadn’t been able to find that girl in ten days, and now the
only other person in the world who apparently knew anything about
Conway had evaporated along with her. It was like chasing ghosts.
When he couldn’t stand the room any longer, he went out and
wandered aimlessly through sun-blasted streets and then sat for an
indefinite period of time he couldn’t even remember in the inviting
dimness of a bar over a Scotch he forgot to drink. He was seized with
a helplessness he had never known before. If there were only
something he could get his hands on. All his life he had gone at
everything by frontal assault, but there was nothing to attack here, no
place even to start. It was terrifying. The only thing between Vickie
and disaster was a fantastic story a prosecutor would tear to shreds.
He shoved back the untouched drink and stalked over to the
telephone booth.
* * *
Howell Gage, of Durand and Gage, was a rail-thin young man in his
early thirties, abrupt, bony-faced, and full of an explosive nervous
energy that defied the heat. His blue eyes reflected the quick and
lunging intelligence that sometimes outran his tongue.
“Get it, Reno,” he burst out, shoving up from his chair behind the
big desk to go striding across the office. “There’s self-defense. There’s
temporary insanity. There’s the outright accident—’I didn’t intend to
do it, I didn’t know the gun was loaded.’ There’s the struggle for the
gun. Good God, man, there’s everything, the world’s full of ‘em, of
ways we could get the charge reduced, or get a light sentence, or get
an acquittal. But listen.” He whirled, jerked a hand through the
bristling red hair, and jabbed it at Pete Reno. “We can’t. You see the
gruesome joke of it? The irony? It’s maddening. We can’t—because
she didn’t kill him. That stupid story of hers is true. I’d bet my life on
it. So what can we do? We walk right into the meat chopper. We go
into court and plead not guilty to murder in the first degree, the way
the charge stands now, with nothing but that crazy story to back us
up. And they’ll clobber us. I haven’t told your sister; she’s got enough
to handle now.”
Go Home, Stranger — 14
“But wait,” Reno said desperately. “You believe it. I believe it. Why
not the jury? Anybody could see that if she was going to make up a
story she wouldn’t have made up that one.”
Gage broke in on him. “A small-town jury? Packed with Solid
Burghers and Mrs. Solid Burghers? Who’ve all been married twenty
years or more? Look, Reno. She was separated from her husband.
Sinful! She was an actress. Hmmmph! Wait’ll the D.A. Gets through
with that. The lousy ham—I can see him already, the barefoot boy
drawing the mantle of all the homespun virtues about himself to
denounce the big-city Jezebel, the shameless hussy who should have
been home darning her husband’s socks instead of gallivanting
around the country play-acting and spying on him. And shooting him.
And throwing the gun out the window.”
“She didn’t throw the gun out of any window,” Reno said. “She
didn’t have a gun.”
Gage came back and perched on the side of the desk. He took out a
pack of cigarettes and offered one to Reno. “But the gun was found in
the alley, fourteen floors below the window, smashed all to hell.”
Reno gestured impatiently. “It could have been put there by
whoever killed Mac.”
Gage pointed the cigarette at him. “Right. But let me show you how
it works. And duck, because you’re going to have egg on your face.
You’re Vickie Shane. I’m the District Attorney. Now, my dear Miss
Shane, you say the gun could have been placed there by the
murderer. Good. But just how do you account for the fact that it was
broken, as if it had fallen from some great height—say, oddly enough,
fourteen floors?”
“That’s easy,” Reno said. “The murderer merely slammed it down
against the pavement to make it look as if it had fallen that far.”
“But why, Miss Shane? Why? Doesn’t that strike you as an odd
pastime for a man who’s just killed another man? A compulsion,
perhaps? An irresistible urge to go around throwing guns down
against paving stones so they’d break?”
“It’d be obvious to any moron,” Reno said, “that he did it to frame
her. He knew she was in the room.”
“Oh.” Gage smiled coldly, and then pounced. “He knew you were in
the room? So this mental case, this utter idiot, went up to a hotel
room where he knew there were two people, with the intention of
murdering one of them and leaving the other for a witness? Come,
Go Home, Stranger — 15
Miss Shane, you don’t expect us to believe that? These are all mature,
intelligent men and women in this jury box.”
“But, damn it,” Reno burst out, “he didn’t know Vickie was in the
room until she screamed.”
“So!” Gage exclaimed triumphantly. “That explains everything,
doesn’t it? Surprised in the act of murder, with a loaded gun in his
hand, this man merely went on out and closed the door, leaving
behind a living witness to his crime, when he could have killed you
with just one more shot, which wouldn’t have taken a tenth of a
second. He had no way of knowing you hadn’t seen his face before
you screamed. You might send him to the death house. But still he
went off and left you there, and just contented himself with some
asinine and childish prank like throwing the gun against the paving
under your window. Miss Shane, I must warn you that you’re trying
our patience.”
“It has to be that way,” Reno said. “That’s what actually happened,
so there must be a way of explaining it. Maybe he lost his nerve.
Maybe he panicked and ran.”
Gage shook his head. He was himself again, already bored with
being the District Attorney. “No. You’ve got the right idea, but you’re
off the track. It’s simpler than that. There was a very good reason he
didn’t kill her, but we can’t prove one damned word of it.” ,
“Well, good God,” Reno said furiously. “Don’t just stand there. What
was it?”
“Inertia.”
“What?”
“Lag. Interval. Reflex time. Whatever you want to call it,” Gage
explained impatiently, in staccato outbursts. “You remember what
happened when the house detective went up there? The door was
locked. It’s a spring lock, like all hotel doors. And remember what she
said? She screamed, and then almost at the same time she heard the
door close. Get it now?”
“Yes,” Reno said excitedly. “Yeah. I see it now.”
“Exactly. He was going out the door when she cut loose. And in that
infinitesimal fraction of a second it took him to realize there was
somebody else in the room, he couldn’t stop himself, and had pulled
the door shut. And he couldn’t get back in. If she’d screamed a tenth
of a second earlier, your sister wouldn’t be charged with murder.
She’d be dead.”
Go Home, Stranger — 16
“Well, that does it,” Reno said, rising from his chair in his
eagerness. “They’ll have to believe it.”
Gage sat down behind the desk again and shook his head. “I hate to
tell you this, Reno,” he said, “but they won’t believe a word of it.”
“They have to!”
“I’m sorry. It’s conjecture, pure and simple. Courts deal in evidence,
and there’s not the slightest bit of proof there was ever anybody
except your sister in that room.”
He went back to the hotel at last because there wasn’t anywhere
else to go, and as he approached the doors he noted absently that the
airport limousine was discharging passengers under the marquee.
Two or three guests were checking in at the desk. He got his key
and had started to turn away when something the clerk said arrested
him with the suddenness of a gunshot. It was a name.
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Conway. We have your reservation.”
He stopped dead still, and then took out a cigarette and carefully
lighted it as he let his face swing back toward the desk. She was a
very pretty woman in her early thirties, a little over average height
and very smartly and expensively turned out in a suit that was out of
place in this climate. San Francisco? He wondered. She had the look.
But hell, the world was full of Conways.
She was reaching for the registration card the clerk had pushed
across the desk. Reno walked slowly over to the sand-filled urn
beyond her, dropped the match in it, and as he turned back let his
gaze sweep across the card. Excitement whispered along his nerves.
“Mrs. Rupert Conway,” it said. “San Francisco.”
He stepped over to the newsstand adjoining the desk. Picking up a
magazine, he started leafing idly through it while he strained his ears
to catch the clerk’s voice. He heard the tinkle of the bell. And then it
came.
“Mrs. Conway to Twelve-o-six.”
He heard the boy gathering up the bags and the sound of their
footsteps retreating toward the elevators. Dropping a quarter on the
glass to pay for the magazine, he turned and picked them out of the
drifting throngs in the lobby. There was no one with her except the
bellboy.
The boy came down in a few minutes and he strolled leisurely into
the elevator, hiding his impatience. She’d be alone now. “Twelve,” he
said. They went up, and when he got out and walked along the silent
Go Home, Stranger — 17
corridor looking at numbers, he was conscious of the excitement
again and the feeling he was getting close to something. Why had she
come? Was she still looking for Conway? Suppose she won’t talk? He
thought. He wished he had Mac’s personality and gift of gab. He was
too abrupt and blunt himself for anything requiring finesse.
He knocked at 1206, and wondered if he should try to get his foot in
the door. He’d have to talk fast. He heard her moving around inside,
and then the door opened a crack and he could see the big violet eyes,
a little apprehensive as they peered out at him.
“Mrs. Conway?” he asked quickly. “I wonder if I could talk to you a
minute. I’m—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish. To his amazement she pulled the
door back. “Yes,” she said urgently. “Yes. Come in.”
When he was inside she closed the door and turned to face him,
obviously under intense strain and trying to control herself. “How did
you know I was here?” she asked. “I just this minute—”
“I was down at the desk when you checked in,” he said, puzzled.
Who did she think he was? Getting in had been too easy.
“Please,” she said hurriedly, not even listening. “What do you know
about my husband?”
Reno studied her face. The large eyes were imploring, and yet they
were worried and frightened. She’s looking for something, he
thought, that she’s afraid she’s not going to like when she finds it.
“I don’t know anything about your husband,” he said, as gently as
he could. “That’s what I came here to ask you.”
She stepped back as if he had slapped her. “But—I don’t
understand. You called me. Long-distance. You said—”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t call you. Maybe I’d better
introduce myself. My name’s Reno.”
“Oh,” she said. The eyes were, full of confusion. “I thought you were
somebody else. I don’t think I know anyone named Reno, do I?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But I’m a friend of somebody you do know.
A dead man by the name of McHugh.”
She stared at him almost without comprehension at first, and then
he could see the fear and shock come into her face. “Oh,” she said.
“Oh.” Then she sat down.
Go Home, Stranger — 18
Three
For a moment neither of them said anything. The silence seemed to
stretch out, and he could hear the faint hum of traffic far below. He
took out a pack of cigarettes and offered her one. She thanked him in
a strained voice. He lit it, and another for himself, and looked about
for a chair. The room, he noticed now for the first time, was the living
room of a suite.
He studied her as he sat down and tossed the match into a tray on
the coffee table. Although tall, she was nevertheless graceful in all
her movements, and had one of the most hauntingly lovely faces he
had ever seen. With the long-lashed violet eyes and raven blackness
of hair, it was an odd combination of bold coloration and contrastingly
gentle, almost melancholy shyness of expression. As he glanced down
at the hands in her lap endlessly pleating and unpleating a fold of her
skirt, he was aware of the agitation she was trying not to show.
“It was such a terrible thing about Mr. McHugh,” she said at last.
“Yes,” he said. He leaned forward a little. “Mrs. Conway, why was
Mac looking for your husband?”
He knew instantly he had been too precipitate. She was shy and
bewildered, and he had hit her too suddenly with it.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Reno, but it was confidential.”
He drew a hand wearily across his face and got up to walk over and
stand looking out the window. For a moment he was conscious of
wondering whether he might not lose his mind in this frustrating
chase after a phantom named Conway. Maybe he was already mad,
Go Home, Stranger — 19
and there wasn’t any Conway at all. When he turned back, he asked,
“You know Dick Carstairs, don’t you?”
“Why, yes,” she said, puzzled. “Why?”
“Well, let me get him on the phone. I’ll pay for the call. He’ll tell you
who I am, and he’ll vouch for the fact that I’m no gossipy windbag
trying to pry into your affairs out of curiosity. McHugh was the best
friend I ever had, and they’re trying to convict my sister of killing
him.”
“Your sister?” she interrupted, staring at him. “You mean Vickie
Shane?”
“Yes,” Reno said. “Do you know her?”
“Not very well, though Mr. McHugh introduced us once. But I’m a
great admirer of hers.”
“I wish you’d tell me about it. I mean, why Mac was down here, and
what he found out, if anything.”
“But it couldn’t have had anything at all to do with his being killed,”
she protested.
“Maybe it didn’t, Mrs. Conway,” he said desperately. “But don’t you
see, I have to start somewhere. I’m grabbing at anything I can see.”
“All right,” she said quietly. “It can’t do any harm, and maybe I owe
it to Mr. McHugh.”
Reno came over and sat down across from her. “First,” he said, “you
mentioned that someone called you by long-distance. Do you know
who it was?”
She shook her head. “He wouldn’t give his name.”
“What did he say?”
“Just that if I’d come down here he could tell me something about
my husband.”
“Didn’t you think that was a little funny?”
“Of course.” Then she added quietly, “I was desperate, Mr. Reno. I
still am.”
She’s taking a beating, he thought. He was beginning to like her.
There was unmistakable sincerity in the concern she felt for Mac’s
death and the jam Vickie was in.
“All right,” he said. “Now, why was Mac looking for him? And in
Waynesport?”
“Because Mr. Conway had disappeared. And Waynesport is the last
place I heard from him. It was a little over a month ago, around the
Go Home, Stranger — 20
middle of July. He had to come down here on business, he said, and
he drove the car. I tried to get him to fly, as it would take less time,
but he said he would need the car here.”
“You say you heard from him? After he left San Francisco?””
She nodded unhappily. “Yes. I received a letter from him every day
until he reached here. He wrote me the night he arrived, just a short
note saying he would write again the next morning.” She stopped
suddenly, her voice breaking. Then she recovered herself, and went
on. “That was the last word I ever received from him. He hadn’t given
me any address, and I didn’t know what to do. When two weeks had
gone by I was frantic. I flew down here.
“It was terrifying. I was utterly helpless. Waynesport is a city of
over a hundred thousand, and I had absolutely nowhere to start. I
understood his family had lived here—that is, he and his mother—and
that he still owned some property she had left him. There were
several Conways in the telephone book and I visited them, but not one
of them had ever heard of my husband. In three days I had to give up
and go back. That was when I thought of Mr. McHugh. It took me
some time to persuade him, but when he finally realized how frantic I
was, he said he would help me.”
Reno sat staring moodily at the cigarette in his hand. All right, he
thought, so she doesn’t want to talk. She’s not lying—I doubt she’d
know how—but she’s just not telling me. Looking in the phone book
for a man who’s disappeared! And yet she’s terrified that something’s
happened to him.
He shook his head and looked directly into her eyes. “It doesn’t jell,
Mrs. Conway. I know you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to but
you haven’t explained anything. Just why did you hire Mac instead of
going to the police?”
She started to take offense. He could see her drawing herself up,
and then she broke completely. The utter helplessness of her crying
wasn’t pleasant to hear. He waited uncomfortably, feeling sorry for
her and regretting his bluntness. She’s nice, he thought. Yeah, and so
was Mac.
When the sobbing had subsided and she looked up at him, tearstreaked
and forlorn, he leaned over and held out his handkerchief.
She shook her head mutely and got up to disappear into the bedroom.
In a few minutes she returned with her face repaired with new
makeup.
“I’m sorry,” he said, standing up.
Go Home, Stranger — 21
“It’s all right.” She sat down and took the cigarette he offered. “You
were right, I suppose. I didn’t tell you all of it. But it was just that I
didn’t think I could make you understand. It would be hard for a man
to see.”
“You could try me,” he said. He could see a little of it already. She
was very much in love with Conway and at the same time she was
afraid there was something wrong about him. Maybe he was mixed up
in something he shouldn’t be, but it didn’t make any difference. She
wanted him back. And she was scared. What was it she was afraid
she’d find? The police? Another woman? “Tell me,” he prompted. “Did
Mac find out anything after he got down here?”
“A little,” she said quietly. “And it scared me more.”
“All right. Suppose you go back to the beginning and tell me
everything.”
“Very well,” she said. Her face was very still and she was looking
past him at nothing. “I may not be able to make you understand,
though. You may not know what it is to be terribly lonely, or afraid of
something you can’t even name. Maybe you never had a dreadful
feeling about a place.”
“A place?”
She nodded somberly. “I know it sounds silly. But it’s there. I can’thelp
it. It’s Waynesport. It’s an awful feeling there’s some connection
between my husband and this place, something I can’t understand. I
don’t know how to explain it. Maybe it was his forever poring over the
newspaper from down here. He bought it at the newsstand every day
—”
“Just a minute,” Reno interrupted. “You say he bought the paper, or
one of the papers, every day? Wasn’t it two or three days old by the
time he got it?”
“Yes. But that didn’t make any difference. He always read it, very
thoroughly, as if he were looking for something. And when we first
met—”
“When was that?”
“This spring. In Italy. In Naples, to be exact. We were attracted to
each other from the start, partly because of a mutual interest in music
and art, and partly because we both loved the country. He had lived in
Italy for several years when he was a child, and later, after college,
and of course he spoke the language fluently. He showed me a lot of
the country I probably wouldn’t have seen or understood alone, and
the night before he was supposed to sail for the States he asked me to
Go Home, Stranger — 22
marry him. I didn’t give him any definite answer, because it had been
such a short time, but I did try to get him to delay his sailing and fly
back from Paris with me a couple of weeks later. He had passage
booked on some small freight-and-passenger ship sailing from Genoa
for the Gulf Coast.”
Reno glanced up quickly. “Waynesport?”
She nodded.
“And he wouldn’t change his mind?”
“No. That’s the reason I’m telling you this. I’m trying to explain that
feeling. I pointed out that he would get back just as soon if he waited
and flew, as it was a slow ship, but he insisted he had to go. At the
time I thought perhaps he didn’t have much money, and couldn’t
afford it. But, as it turned out, he must have had some other reason,
for when he came on out to San Francisco and we continued seeing
each other and later were married, in May, he apparently had no
money worries.”
“And you don’t know anything about his business at all?”
“No. He never talked about money. I gathered from a few things he
let drop that his mother had left him some property in the South, and
I had the impression it was in Waynesport. But, Mr. Reno, nobody
down here had ever heard of him!”
“Well,” Reno said soothingly, “as you said, it’s a large place. But tell
me—and this may be a little personal, but I wish you’d answer it
anyway—when he left, you hadn’t had a quarrel?”
She shook her head emphatically. “Heavens, no. In fact, I begged
him to let me go too. But he said he’d be busy all the time, and that it
was awfully hot down here in summer. We had never quarreled. He
was a little moody and preoccupied that day, after he read the paper,
but he was always very kind and considerate.”
“You mean the Waynesport paper?”
“Yes. The Express. He—”
“Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt so much, Mrs. Conway. But it
was after he read the paper that he told you he was coming down
here?”
“Yes. He had just come in from the street with it and was reading it
in the living room. I was in another room and thought I heard him say
something and went to the door to see if he had spoken to me. But he
was so deeply engrossed in what he was reading he didn’t notice me.
All the rest of the day he was very absent-minded, and that night he
said he’d have to go to Waynesport.”
Go Home, Stranger — 23
“Do you still have the paper?”
“No. I’m sorry. Mr. McHugh also asked for it, but it had been
thrown away.”
“Do you remember the date of it?”
“I’m not sure, exactly. But it must have been July twelfth. As you
say, it was always two or three days old when he got it, and he left
San Francisco the next morning, which was the sixteenth.”
“And the last letter you received from him was mailed in
Waynesport four or five days later?”
“Yes. On the twentieth.”
A little over a month ago, Reno thought. And for nearly all that time
his car was in a police garage. Something either happened to him, or
he was doing a deliberate runout on her. But why did he keep writing
until he got here if he intended to fade? It didn’t make sense. He got
up and prowled around restlessly.
“All right, Mrs. Conway,” he said. “Can you tell me what you heard
from McHugh from the time he got here?”
“Just a minute, please.” She went out into the bedroom. In a minute
she came back carrying two thick envelopes and a telegram. “This is
all of it,” she said, “except one long-distance telephone call. The
phone call was last, and the strangest of all, and it made me think that
maybe he had found something.” She was quiet for a moment as she
sat down and Reno could see she was trying not to break down and
cry again. “But I’ll give them to you in order. The first was the
telegram.”
Reno reached for it and unfolded the yellow sheet. “Please advise if
car had trailer hitch,” it said. “McHugh.”
She shook her head at his questioning look. “I didn’t understand it
either, at the time. If he thought he had located the car, he had the
license number and motor number.”
“No,” Reno said. “He wasn’t trying to identify the car. But was there
a hitch on it?”.
“Not when it left San Francisco.”
Reno nodded. “That was what Mac wanted to know. So there was
one on it when he located it. Did he find the trailer?”
“That was another strange thing,” she said. “It wasn’t a trailer.”
Go Home, Stranger — 24
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