Go Home, Stranger by Charles Williams 1954(2)

Four
He stared at her, incredulous and puzzled, and had just opened his
mouth to speak when the telephone rang in the bedroom. “Excuse
me,” she said, and arose.
He eyed the two envelopes hungrily, and then shrugged. He could
wait until she returned. Another minute or two wouldn’t make any
difference, and he had to be careful about rushing her. But what on
earth had she meant by saying it wasn’t a trailer? There was one
other ‘possibility, of course, but that didn’t make sense either.
Suddenly he was conscious that he could hear her in the other
room. “Yes. Yes. I understand,” she was saying in a low voice charged
with emotion. “Of course not, if you say so. No one. No one at all....
Where?... Counsel Bayou? And then turn— I’ll find it.”

He heard the telephone drop into the cradle, and she appeared in
the doorway. Her eyes avoided his.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Reno,” she said awkwardly, “but I’ll have to ask you
to leave.”
“But Mac’s reports—”
“I’ve changed my mind. It was foolish to think I could let anyone
read them.”
“But you can’t do that! I’ve got to see them.”
“Please,” she said, almost tearfully, her voice beginning to be a little
wild. “Will you go? I—I can’t talk about it any more.”
He stood up. He was beginning to understand now. “So he called
you again?”
Go Home, Stranger — 25
She made no answer, but her eyes begged him to get out. He
thought bitterly of the two reports lying there on the table, but there
was nothing he could do now.
“All right,” he said, then paused with his hand on the door. “But
there are a couple of things I’ve got to tell you. One of them is that
your friend on the phone sounds like a bad check to me, and you’d
better take a good look at anything he sells you.
“The other one is that I’m still looking for the joker in this deal. And
if I find it, things are going to get rugged.”
He was still burning with anger and disappointment as he went
down in the elevator. In another five minutes he’d have learned what
Mac had found out. Well, it couldn’t be helped now. The man who had
called her had warned her to talk to no one; that was obvious. And
he’d told her where to meet him.
He was crossing the lobby when the idea struck him. He stopped
and considered it, his eyes growing hard, and turned and headed for
the telephone booths. The caller claimed to know something about
Conway. Maybe, then, if Mrs. Conway would lead the way out there . .
.
He looked up U-Drive agencies in the book and hurried over to the
nearest one. After he had rented a car and secured a road map, he
had to circle the block five or six times before a parking place opened
up where he could watch the hotel entrance. He slid into it, put a
nickel in the meter, and settled down to wait. He looked at his watch.
It was a quarter of five.
Sunlight tilted brazenly into the street, and the glare hurt his eyes.
Fifteen minutes dragged by. Maybe he had missed her. He got the
road map out of the glove compartment and studied it between
glances at the hotel doors. Counsel Bayou was about thirty-five miles
to the southeast, one of the myriad waterways intersecting the main
ship channel on its meandering way to the Gulf.
He glanced up suddenly. A car was pulling into the hotel loading
zone, a gray Cadillac with California license plates. That would be
Conway’s car. He saw the white-coated garage attendant get out, and
Mrs. Conway came out of the hotel.
He slid in behind the big car as it pulled out of the zone. Keeping
well closed up, he followed her through the downtown traffic, and
when they were on the open highway he fell back about a quarter
mile, allowing two or three cars to get between them. The sun was
setting now, and shadows were thickening in the moss-hung
Go Home, Stranger — 26
labyrinths of the live oaks on both sides of the road. Farmhouses were
farther apart as they wound on into the bayou country.
As he watched the cars ahead he wondered suddenly and angrily if
all this had anything to do with Vickie. Maybe he was just wasting
time. But why, in the name of heaven, would a man who was trying to
disappear announce where he was going, write a letter every day
until he got there, and leave his car on the street to be picked up by
the police?
He shook his head impatiently. The whole thing was crazy. What
about the trailer hitch? If it hadn’t been a trailer Conway was pulling
when he got here, it had to be a boat. But why? Was he going fishing?
That was stupid; there were hundreds of places all over this bayou
country that rented boats to fishermen. Not even an idiot would spend
from three to five hundred dollars for a boat-and-trailer rig and go
dragging it across the continent for a couple of days’ fishing when he
could rent one.
And, he thought angrily, as he kept his distance behind the big car
ahead, whoever had killed Mac had been no idiot. He had covered
himself too beautifully; and Mac was nobody’s pushover, to begin
with. He slowed abruptly. Up ahead in the gathering dusk the Cadillac
had swung off the highway onto a shell-surfaced road leading south
through the trees. Then he noticed with surprise that one of the cars
between them was turning also. Was somebody else following her?
Probably just a coincidence, he thought; if he was tailing her too, he’d
be back here jockeying for third place with me.
He remembered, from his study of the road map, that the ship
channel should be somewhere ahead in the direction they were going
now. The highway roughly paralleled it, on the north side. Suddenly
they were upon it. He came around a turn in the road and found the
other two cars stopped at the approach to a big steel bridge showing
ghostly in the twilight. The span was lifting, and a deep-laden tanker
was easing slowly down the channel, its running lights glowing
brightly against the dark walls of timber.
He stopped, grateful for the car between them. The tanker passed,
a muted rumble of Diesels coming up through the ventilators, and the
span started swinging down. About a mile farther along the middle
car turned off onto a dirt road. And then she switched on her lights. It
was going to be difficult from here on. In another few minutes at most
he’d have to turn on his own, and she couldn’t help knowing there
was a car behind her.
Go Home, Stranger — 27
The country was changing now. They were running out of the
timber into a flat marshland covered with cattails and high grass and
crisscrossed with canals. He saw her lights swing sharply in a rightangled
turn, and they were running directly into the fading afterglow
of the sunset. It was a forbidding landscape. The dark plain swept
away toward the horizon to the south and west as far as the eye could
reach, the monotonous marsh growth shadowy and inhospitable in the
gathering night. No habitation was visible anywhere, nothing but the
road running ahead.
The warning began to sound suddenly in his mind. If this was
actually where her caller had told her to come, it was beginning to
smell.
He thought swiftly. He could speed up and pass her, force her to
stop. Maybe he could talk her out of it. But, hell, he thought angrily,
that would ruin everything. He’s down here somewhere, and if I make
her turn back I may never find him or get another chance. I’m not her
mother; she’s old enough to know what she’s doing.
It was ho good, and he knew it. He couldn’t let her do it. He cursed,
flipped on the headlights, and hit the throttle. Then he saw the lights
ahead of him swing sharp left as the road turned south again, deeper
into the vast solitude.
The walls of grass flew back toward him and disappeared into the
darkness behind. Wooden bridge boards clattered. He reached the
turn, and when he was around it, skidding and throwing shell, he saw
she was farther ahead. He swore again. She had seen his lights come
on, and she was trying to run away from him. He ground on the
throttle again. And then he saw it happen. It was sickening.
Her headlights slued crazily and then swung, tilted against the sky,
as the car went out of control, skidded, and went over. For one
terrible part of a second they were at right angles to the road,
shattering light against the wall of grass, then they disappeared as if
the car had been swallowed, instantly and entirely, by some huge
monster of the swamp. There was no sound at all, not yet; nothing but
the awful evidence of the lights and then the end of them, as he hit
the brakes with pure reflex and began fighting his speed down just
inside the margin of control. There was no time to wonder what had
happened, until the sound did reach him, and then he knew. In the
second before he heard the crash, he heard the other thing. It was a
gun.
His car was skidding now. The rear wheels were yawing toward the
ditch. He eased the brake and fought it back onto the crown of the
Go Home, Stranger — 28
road, and when he straightened out again he was almost on the spot.
There was no Cadillac in his lights. He could see the road, and it
wasn’t there. There was a canal, and a wooden bridge with one
railing, and that was all he saw before he slashed down with one hand
at the light switch, set the hand brake, arid was out and running even
before the car had shuddered to a stop.
Darkness swallowed him. He ran bent over to keep from
silhouetting himself against the-sky, and he could see nothing except
the faintly luminous shell of the road. Then he felt the bridge flooring
under his feet, and stopped. There was dead silence now except the
pounding of his heart and the suck and slap of water as the wave the
Cadillac had set up died away in the pads and grass farther along the
bank of the canal. It was the left-hand railing that had been ripped off,
and even as he jumped he could make out the dark shape of
something that could be part of the car sticking out of the water.
The water came up to his shoulders, and he could feel mud suck at
his feet as he threshed his way forward, groping for the car. It
couldn’t make any difference, he thought bitterly; she’s dead anyway.
Then his hand hit something. It was a tire. He raised his head and
could make out all four of them, just sticking above the surface. The
car was lying on its top. He went under, groping frenziedly along the
side. His arm brushed broken glass, and he felt the pain of a bad cut.
The door handle had to be just above that glass somewhere. Then he
felt it. He pulled. It was jammed.
The other door, he thought furiously. God, how long had it been
now? As he floundered around the end of the car and down on the
other side, some part of his mind was still trying to guess what the
man with the gun was doing. Where was he now?
The water was deeper here. He took a quick breath and went under.
It took only a second to locate the door handle. He unlatched it and
pulled, feeling the terrible need to hurry run through him like
physical pain. It was stuck. He set his feet against the side and
heaved, fighting it. The door moved a scant inch and stopped. He
pulled himself down to his knees and felt along the doorframe, and
then he knew what it was. The top of the car had settled so far into
the mud that the only way the door could be opened would be to dig
enough of the muck from in front of it to allow it to swing. And long
before he could do that she would be dead, if she weren’t already.
Then he felt a surge of hope. The window was rolled down. There
was opening enough for him to slide through by keeping his stomach
flat against the mud. He was pulling himself down when he felt the
Go Home, Stranger — 29
car shift a little and settle again. He fought down the whisperings of
panic. Was it worth it, for a woman who was probably already dead? If
the car rolled now, or sank a little deeper into the mud, he’d never get
out.
Then, for the first time, he became conscious of the sound. It was a
spasmodic thumping somewhere inside, a sound that could be made
by the unconscious and futile threshings of someone drowning. There
was no help for it. He had to try.
He was halfway in now. For the first time he realized he should
have returned to the surface for another breath before attempting it.
How long had he been under now? Twenty seconds? Thirty? His lungs
were beginning to hurt. Soft mud sucked at him, while the window
frame brushed ominously against his back. He felt the car slip again.
He threw his arms about wildly, felt his hand touch something, and
grabbed.
It was an arm. He slid his hands along it and caught her shoulders.
She was struggling weakly, and one of her hands fastened itself in his
clothing. He began inching backward, pulling her down toward the
window. The car shuddered and settled another fraction of an inch
and he fought back panic. His lungs were tortured; he had only a few
seconds more. Then he was outside, pulling her body through the
window. He put his feet against the muddy bottom of the canal and
pushed upward, still holding her by the shoulders. Their heads came
clear of the surface with a little swirling and splashing of water, and
almost instantly the night erupted with the wicked crash of the gun.
He felt rather than heard the impact as lead slammed into the water
a few feet off to his left. It was too dark now to see anything at all; the
man was shooting at the noise they had made in surfacing. Standing
perfectly still, up to his chin in water, Reno heard the metallic clack,
clack as he operated the bolt and knew the man was shooting a rifle.
The gun crashed again and lead ricocheted off the surface of the
water to go screaming into the night. Reno sucked in a deep breath
and was just going under when a brilliant shaft of light suddenly burst
out across the surface of the canal.
His mind was clear now, and he was full of a cold and terrible rage.
He was down on the mud at the bottom of the canal, against the side
of the car, holding the inert figure of the woman in his left arm. She
had ceased struggling, and every passing second robbed her of a little
more of her dwindling chance for life. He had to get her out of there
within a minute or two and start applying artificial respiration to save
her, even if she hadn’t been hit by that first shot that had made her
Go Home, Stranger — 30
lose control of the car. Aside from the natural desire to save her if he
could, he knew now that Conway was somehow the answer to the
whole question and that if she died he might never know what it was.
His only lead would be gone forever.
He coldly assayed their chances as he pulled his way around the
end of the car. The man probably hadn’t seen them. The first stab of
light had hit a little farther up the canal and had started sweeping
toward them just as he went under. Could he make it to the bridge
before he had to surface? He was around the car now, kicking along
the bottom. But which way was the bridge? When he lost contact with
the car all sense of direction was gone.
His lungs were beginning to sting again. Any second now he had to
come up. Then he felt grass stems raking along his face, and the slimy
stems of pads. If the light’s over here; he thought, we’re dead. He’ll
see them moving. The bottom shelved upward against his shoulder,
and he felt his face break out into the air. He was against one of the
banks of the canal.
He opened his eyes, and through the tangled screen of grass about
his face he could see the light. It was playing steadily on the upturned
running gear of the car, and it was coming from this same side of the
canal. The man was standing some fifteen yards away in the tall reeds
along the bank.
Reno lay on his left side, completely submerged except for the
upper part of his face, with Mrs. Conway in his arms in front of him.
He wondered desperately if there was still any hope.
Moving with infinite caution, so as not to disturb the surface of the
water, he slid a hand upward and touched the fingers against her
throat. He could feel the pulse. It was pitifully weak and faltering, but
her heart was beating. She was dying of oxygen starvation, but her
life could still be saved. If only they could get out of the water! He
stared at the light with an implacable hatred. He thought of Mac, and
of Vickie, and of Mrs. Conway now, and wanted to stand up and
charge straight into that beam of light and get his hands on the man
who held it.
Yeah, straight into the meat-chopper, he thought coldly, getting
hold of himself. That flashlight was being held along the underside of
a rifle barrel, and He would be dead before he could sit up. He jerked
his eyes a little, without moving his head. The light was moving now.
It swept slowly along the opposite bank of the canal, searching every
inch of the vegetation. It went beyond, out of range of his eyes as he
Go Home, Stranger — 31
held his face rigidly still. It would be probing the dark recesses under
the bridge behind them. Then it would come back, along this side.
It was full on them. He was staring straight into the blinding
intensity of it, not moving, not daring even to close his eyelids or
breathe, his fingers still against the throat and the weakening pulse of
the woman in his arm. It was all the staring eyes in the world
suddenly concentrated into one, probing into him, literally burning
him out of hiding. An age seemed to pass while he waited for the
sound of the shot, knowing he would never hear it if it came. Then
suddenly the light was gone.
It jerked around and the rifle cracked, all at once. It was the car
that drew it. Reno watched,, fascinated. It was turning. The wheels
swung up and over and the whole thing sank out of sight as it settled
into the deeper water in the middle of the canal. Two or three big air
bubbles came up and burst on the surface and a few drops of gasoline
spread a sheen of expanding color. The light remained fixed for what
seemed like an eternity as the man watched the surface. Reno heard
him laugh softly.
Then he was going away. He was pushing through the reeds and
cattails, swinging the light ahead of him. Reno waited, fighting down
the yearning to go after him. There’ll be another time, he thought
coldly. He made himself lie still. In another minute he heard the
sound of the man’s stepping into a boat and the popping roar of an
outboard motor. He was headed away from them.
Reno pushed himself up and rose unsteadily from the water,
listening to the dying sound of the boat. This is one time, pal, he
thought, when you should have checked your figures.
Go Home, Stranger — 32
Five
He never did know how long he fought for her life there on the canal
bank in the darkness. Water ran out of her clothes and mosquitoes
buzzed about her face in ravenous swarms. He crouched astride her
as she lay with her face slightly downhill and went on alternately
pushing in against her ribs and letting them swell outward, hoping in
an agony of suspense for some sign of life.
It might have been three minutes, or it might have been twenty,
before he felt her quiver and heard a shuddering intake of breath as
she caught the rhythm of it and her lungs began functioning again.
She retched, and was sick.
In a moment she was able to sit up very weakly in his arms, and he
picked her up and hurried back to the car. He put her in the front seat
and climbed in behind the wheel. Their sodden clothing leaked onto
the floor mat and the upholstery. He seesawed savagely back and
forth across the road, turning around; then he was gunning the car in
second gear to pick up speed back the way they had come. I don’t
even know whether she’s been shot, he thought. But it wouldn’t do
any good to waste time trying to find out. The thing to do was to get
her to a doctor.
He found one, in a combined office and residence, as they were
coming into the outskirts of the city. Lifting her out, he carried her
across the lawn and punched imperiously at the bell. Shoving past the
startled physician, who had been interrupted at dinner, he put her
down on the table in the consultation room.
“Wreck,” he said shortly. “She went into a canal with her car.”
Go Home, Stranger — 33
She was trying to sit up now. “I’m all right,” she said shakily. She
was very pale, and the dark hair was plastered wetly about her face.
Reno gently shoved her back. “Take it easy,” he said. “You’ve had
enough.” Then he looked down at the leaking ruin of his clothing and
the cut on his arm, which was dripping onto the rug. “Which way’s the
bathroom?”
The reaction began to catch up with him and he was weak and
trembling. It had been too long now since he had slept, and he was
going on nerve alone. He took off his clothes and wrung the water out
of them into the bathtub, and wrapped a towel around the cut on his
arm. In a few minutes the doctor knocked on the door and handed
him a terry-cloth robe and a small glass of whisky.
“You can come out in a minute and I’ll fix that arm of yours,” he
said. “You’re probably hurt worse than she is.”
“How is she?” Reno asked, feeling the sudden release from tension.
There’d been no gunshot wound.
“A little weak. Some shock, of course. She had a bad blow on the
head, but no concussion, apparently. She’ll be all right.”
“Is she able, to travel?”
“Possibly, but I wouldn’t advise it. Does she have to? Tonight?”
“Yeah,” Reno said laconically. “Tonight.”
He downed the whisky with a gulp and went out into the front hall
to the telephone. He called the railroad station, found there was a
westbound train in a little over two hours, and tried to reserve a
bedroom. There was none available, but he managed to get a
roomette. Then he dialed the hotel.
“Hello,” he said. “Mrs. Conway, in Room Twelve-o-six, has had an
accident. Car went in the canal. And she has to catch a train in two
hours. So listen. Make out her bill, send a boy up to get her luggage,
and shoot him out here in a cab with it. Just a minute and I’ll give you
the address.” He called in to the physician, and repeated it over the
telephone. “And rush it, will you?”
He went back into the office. She was sitting up with a sheet
wrapped around her. Her face was deathly white and he could see she
had been crying. The doctor took three stitches in his arm and
bandaged it, and after Reno had explained about the clothes coming
from the hotel, he went back into the dining room to finish his dinner.
As soon as he was out the door she looked up and whispered
shakily, “I’ll never be able to thank you.”
Go Home, Stranger — 34
The doctor had left some cigarettes on a table. Reno lit two of them
and gave her one. “Forget it,” he said. “You’re just lucky he missed
you with that rifle. But you’ve got to get out of this country. As soon
as you can change clothes I’ll take you to the train. And get this: Don’t
come back here. He still thinks he got us both, but he’ll know better
as soon as they fish that car out.”
Her eyes were sick with horror. “But why? Why?” she asked
piteously. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know.” Everything said it had to be Conway, but how could
he tell her that her own husband had tried to murder her? Or did he
need to? Wasn’t that what she was thinking herself?
“If all your money was in your purse”” he went on, “I’ll lend you
enough to get to San Francisco. You can mail it back.”
She shook her head. “Thank you, but I have some traveler’s checks
in one of my bags.”
He swung around toward her. ‘Those reports of Mac’s. Were they in
the car?”
“No. They’re in one of the bags too.”
“Well?” he asked quietly.
She nodded. “It’s the least I can do.”
The luggage came. She paid the hotel bill and the taxi and went into
another room to dress. Reno put his damp clothes back on and paid
the doctor. When she returned, smartly turned out again except for
the wet hair, which she had covered with a scarf, Reno looked at the
clock in the office and saw they still had an hour to catch the train.
They went out and got in the car. He drove two or three blocks and
pulled to a stop under a street light. She had the two envelopes in her
lap.
Wordlessly she handed him the first one. His big hands were
awkward and shaking a little with excitement as he slid the papers
out of the envelope.
Dear Mrs. Conway:
As you have no doubt gathered from my telegram, I have
located Mr. Conway’s automobile. Notwithstanding your
reluctance to appeal to the police, I went to them almost
the first thing after checking in at the hotel, since—as I told
you in San Francisco—I believe this could be serious
Go Home, Stranger — 35
enough to warrant it. And I think you will agree with me
when I tell you that the automobile has been impounded by
the Traffic Detail in their garage since the twenty-second of
July, only two days after the date of Mr. Conway’s last
letter. It was picked up at that time in a tow-away zone.
In reference to my telegram, one of the first things I
noticed about the car after picking it up was that there was
an apparently newly installed trailer hitch on it. Since it
might or might not be a significant lead, I wired you to
learn whether it had been on there when the car left San
Francisco. And since you say it was not, obviously Mr.
Conway had it put on somewhere between there and here,
which of course made it highly significant. Whatever he
was towing when he arrived in this area might be still
around somewhere, and if I could find out what kind of
trailer it was I could give the police a description of it and
get their assistance in running it down. With that idea in
mind I started backtracking along the highway, stopping at
all service stations to make inquiries. I kept at it until
midnight and then on the following day, covering almost a
hundred miles before I located a man who remembered the
car. His general description of the driver checked closely
with that of Mr. Conway. He also stated there was only one
person in the car.
Reno grunted. Mac had the same hunch I did, he thought. And
probably she had it too, though she wouldn’t admit it. But if Conway
was meeting somebody, she hadn’t shown up. He went on reading.
Questioned about the type of trailer, the service-station
attendant insisted that what Mr. Conway had been towing
was not a trailer at all, but a boat. He was quite definite on
this point and was even able to give me a rather good
description of it, since, fortunately, he was a fisherman and
interested enough to examine it. It appeared to be the
usual rig, rather common in this country, consisting of a
pipe-frame-and-axle trailer with the boat cradled between
the wheels. The boat itself, he said, had apparently been
bought at a sporting-goods store, since it was a lightweight
skiff of about ten feet and was varnished rather than
painted.
Go Home, Stranger — 36
Needless to say, I would be inclined to doubt the whole
thing if it were not for the finality of the man’s
identification of the car, and the fact that it does have a
trailer hitch installed. There seems to be no logical reason
why Mr. Conway would need a boat if he were coming to
Waynesport on business, and if, on the other hand, he were
going fishing, there are hundreds of boats for rent all along
the ship channel and the bayous of this area.
I So far I have had no success in tracing his movements
beyond this point, but tomorrow I shall take the car and
start covering the area south of the city, the forty miles or
so of ship channel and bayou between here and the Gulf,
for which he must obviously have been heading if he were
towing a boat.
Very truly yours,
WALTER L. MCHUGH
Reno slipped the report back inside its envelope and looked around
at Mrs. Conway. She shook her head with utter hopelessness.
“I have no idea what- on earth he would have wanted with a boat,”
she said.
It’s crazy, Reno thought. The whole thing’s insane. He took the
other report and spread it open.
Dear Mrs. Conway:
I am writing this in the early morning to try to catch
today’s air mail with it. Two days of search since my first
report have turned up a few facts and conclusions, which I
shall pass on to you before continuing. The first of these is
that it is quite definite now that your husband was not
headed for Waynesport at all—that is, not for the city itself
—but for the, country around Counsel Bayou, some thirtyfive
miles southwest of here on the ship channel. He
apparently drove right through the city, stopping just long
enough, to mail the letter to you. The service-station
attendant referred to in the previous report believes it was
around three-thirty P.M. When he stopped there for
gasoline. That was nearly a hundred miles north of
Waynesport, a good two hours drive for anyone pulling a
boat. And the only other person who can remember seeing
him states that just at dusk he was thirty-five miles down
Go Home, Stranger — 37
the ship channel below the city. Since we already know he
did not register at any Waynesport hotel on that night, this
appears likely.
The witness, a girl living at a tourist camp and fishing
resort on Counsel Bayou, states that she saw the boat and
car parked momentarily just across the highway from a
roadhouse named the Counselor about a quarter mile from
her cabin. She says there was one man in the car and that
he was apparently doing nothing except sitting there
looking at the front of the inn. After she had driven past
she happened to glance into the rear-view mirror and see
him start up. He followed her a short distance down the
highway and turned off onto an old dirt road leading into
the timber as if he were going camping or fishing. To this
date I have found no one who saw him after that time.
Along the other line of search, I have turned up nothing at
all. I mean, of course, the attempt to find someone who
knew Mr. Conway and what the business was that brought
him down here. In spite of the fact that it was your
impression that he is from this area and that his family has
lived here for a long time, no one recalls any member of the
four Conway families living in the county who in any way
answers his description. I have talked to nearly all of them
personally, visited the police and some of the county
officers, and questioned a number of men who served on
county draft boards during the war, and so far have had no
success at all. This is extremely odd in view of the general
background he obviously had from your description of him
as a man of considerable education and culture and who
must necessarily have come from a family of some means,
if not prominence. If it were not for the fact that he was
obviously quite familiar with this section, I would say that
you had probably been mistaken in believing he came from
here.
I am going back down the channel today to make more
inquiries around and beyond Counsel Bayou, and will
advise you of further developments.
Very truly yours,
WALTER L. MCHUGH
Reno looked up from the last page and she was watching him
anxiously. “What do you think?” she asked.
Go Home, Stranger — 38
“That it’s a little funny Mac didn’t have a picture of him,” he said.
“How come?”
“I didn’t have one.”
“Isn’t that a little odd? No picture at all?” She nodded. “I asked him
a number of times to have some photographs made and he always
said he would. But he kept putting it off. And there were no snapshots
because neither of us owned a camera.”
“But you met him in Italy. So he must have had a passport.”
“I couldn’t find it. I looked everywhere.”
Reno stared thoughtfully through the windshield. “In that case, he
either destroyed it or took it with him. And if he took it, he must be
leaving the country.”
“Yes,” she said wretchedly. “I’ve thought of that.”
Suddenly she hunched forward with her hands over her face,
shaking as if with a violent chill. “I’m sorry,” she whispered in a
moment, her voice taut with horror. “It keeps coming back. The gun—
and the glass breaking—and the car turning over.”
Reno waited until she had recovered. “Now, about that telephone
call from Mac,” he reminded gently.
“Oh.” She took the cigarette he offered and held it mechanically
between her fingers, forgetting it. “It was the same day he wrote the
second report. In the afternoon. Of course, I hadn’t received the
report at that time, but he told me what was in it and asked me some
questions. They were rather odd, the things he asked, but he didn’t
explain except to say he wanted to be sure about something and that
he would write me that night or the next day. And, of course, he never
did, because that night he was killed.”
“What did he ask?”
“First, whether Mr. Conway had ever mentioned being in Italy with
the Army during the Second World War. And whether he had a little
scar, like an old burn, along the side of his left wrist. And last,
whether he ever addressed people as ‘old boy’—you know, the way
some of the English do.”
“And the answers?” Reno prompted.
“Yes. To all of them.”
Well, there it is, he thought bitterly. Mac ran it down at last. And he
was killed before he could tell anybody else. Maybe we’ll never know.
“Mr. Reno,” she asked at last, her face full of bottomless misery,
“what do you think it all means?”
Go Home, Stranger — 39
He hated to do it, because he liked her. But, hell, he thought, she
must know it herself. “I don’t know,” he said. “Except one thing that
telegraphs itself all over the place.”
“What is that?”
“It’s simple enough. Your husband’s name wasn’t Conway.”
He started the car in a minute and drove to the railroad station.
Neither of them said anything until he parked on a street near the
entrance. The train was coming.
“Now listen,” he said, “I’m not going in with you. I’ll be behind you
all the time, but you’ll have to carry your own bags until you get a
redcap. Pick up your ticket and get aboard the train as fast as you
can. I don’t think there’s a chance in the world he’ll be around here,
but I’ve quit trusting anybody. And I don’t want him to find out who I
am or what I look like.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll be around here, but I’ve quit advertising it. Now, if I were you,
I’d get out of San Francisco. And don’t leave a forwarding address.
It’s always possible whoever it was might go out there after you. But
let me know where you are. Write me care of General Delivery here. I
think that’s about it, except that next time somebody says he has
some information for you, tell him to meet you at a police station or
just write you a letter.”
He saw her get aboard, a lonely figure going slowly up the steps.
Then he drove the car back to the U-Drive agency and took a cab to
the hotel. He was numb with weariness, but he changed clothes and
called the police station.
The Lieutenant had gone off duty. There was only one Wayland in
the telephone book, however, so he caught another taxi and went out
to his home. A pleasant-faced woman admitted him and left the two of
them alone in the comfortable living room. Wayland was pasting
stamps in an album.
“Sit down,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “What’s on your
mind?”
Reno remained standing. “I don’t know whether you bring your job
home with you or not, but I’ve got some news that wouldn’t keep. It
proves she didn’t do it, and you can turn her loose. The man that
killed McHugh is still doing business.”
The tough brown eyes expressed no emotion whatever. “What
makes you think so?’
“He just tried to kill Mrs. Conway.”
Go Home, Stranger — 40
“Mrs. Conway?” Then the name registered. “Oh, I remember. What
happened?”
Reno told him. When he had finished Wayland stared at him
thoughtfully. “Where is she now?”
“I put her on a train for California.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Reno repeated. “You want another corpse on your hands?
Whoever it was will try again.”
“We might be able to protect her. Did that ever occur to you?”
“And what,” Reno asked harshly, “would give me a stupid idea like
that?”
‘Look, Reno,” Wayland said coldly. “I’m glad you were able to save
her. And probably she is too. But you’re going to get yourself in a jam
if you don’t watch your step. If somebody did try to kill that woman,
you should have notified the sheriff and had her taken to a hospital.
It’s outside our jurisdiction, and we can’t do anything about it except
to notify the county people. And as far as its having anything to do
with McHugh’s murder, that’s only your guess. So what if Conway
was a foul ball? You don’t even know he was, and it wouldn’t prove
anything if you did. And if you’re trying to get your sister out on bail,
you’re talking to the wrong man. I haven’t anything to do with that.”
“I’m not trying to get her out on bail,” Reno said curtly. “I don’t
want her out on bail. I want her turned loose.”
“Well, this won’t get it.”
They stared at each other. “Listen,” Reno said, the gray eyes hard,
“the man who tried to kill Mrs. Conway is the one who killed McHugh.
And I want him. Do you?”
“Yes. If there is such a man.”
“There is. I just told you.” Reno started for the door, and looked
back. “And if you do want him, you’d better start looking. Because if I
find him first he’s going to be secondhand when you get him.”
Go Home, Stranger — 41
Six
He was out on his feet, but sleep would not come. An endless horde of
questions chased themselves through his mind. Who was Conway, and
what had he been trying to do? And why, in the name of God, had he
needed a boat? Where was the one little thing that tied it all together?
Mac’s death, Counsel Bayou, the girl with the dimple in her chin, Mrs.
Conway’s long-distance telephone call and the attempt on her life—
they were all parts of the same thing; there was no longer any doubt
of that, but what was it?
He sat on the side of the bed smoking cigarettes and pawing wearily
through this senseless jumble of evidence. Counsel Bayou, he
thought; you always come back to that. It was the last place anybody
had ever seen Conway; it was where Mac had gone to ask questions
that last day before he was killed. He stopped and jerked his head
upright. The thing Vickie had said—that the only word she heard in
the mumbled conversation between Mac and the killer there in the
hotel room was something that sounded like “counsel.” That figured,
he thought; but what did it prove?
The thing that was so terrible was that it was just beyond the tips of
his outstretched fingers. Mac had known who Conway was. He found
out definitely. The telephone call to Mrs. Conway proved that. He
shook his head and groaned. If only Mac had had a chance to tell
somebody . . .
At last, in desperation, he put through a call to Carstairs’ residence
in San Francisco. “Dick,” he said, “this is Pete again.”
“Sure, Pete,” Carstairs replied. “Anything new?”
Go Home, Stranger — 42
“A little,” Reno said. He told briefly what had happened to Mrs.
Conway and added that he had finally read Mac’s reports. “The
answer to this thing is down around that Bayou somewhere. But look.
What I called about—I’m grabbing at straws. Mac found out
something after he wrote that last report. He learned who the guy
really was. And you gathered up his gear here at the hotel. There
wasn’t anything in it that would give us a lead? No unfinished report?
No notes of any kind?”
“No,” Carstairs said regretfully. “There wasn’t a thing, Pete.” Then
he added, as an afterthought, “There was a letter that came the other
day, forwarded out here by the hotel. But it didn’t have anything to do
with Conway.”
Reno frowned. “A letter, you say? From where?”
“Oh, from some friend of Mac’s in the FBI. Came after he was killed,
and the hotel sent it on out here with the rest of his things. But as I
say, it wasn’t about Conway. Some other guy entirely.”
Reno was gripping the telephone with sudden tenseness and
leaning forward. “Who?”he barked. “What was his name?”
“As I remember, it was some joker named Counsel. Yes, that was it.
Robert Counsel.”
Reno exhaled slowly. “All right, Dick,” he said softly. “Read it to me.
I don’t care if you have to walk down to your office in your bare feet
and pajamas to get it, but read it to me. Slowly, so I can write it
down.”
“It’s right here at home, in Mac’s gear. You think Counsel was—?”
“Dick, will you read that letter?”
It took several minutes, writing it down in longhand. When he had
hung up he read it over again.
Dear Irish:
Always glad to hear from an old classmate. This is all I’ve
been able to dig up since your phone call this afternoon,
but I think it’ll answer your questions. I just happen to have
a friend who’s a major over at the Pentagon, and he was
able to get at the joker’s service record.
Robert Counsel was a rare one, from the looks of it.
Inducted as a private in 1942, though he had the
educational background for a commission if he’d wanted it.
Refused OCS also, so guess he meant it. Made sergeant,
and was busted back to private for insubordination.
Go Home, Stranger — 43
General snottiness, the major said, judging from the
record. Served in North Africa, then in Italy, and was still
in Italy after the war ended. Had points enough to go home,
but didn’t seem to care whether he did or not. Courtmartialed
in 1946 for black-market operations with stolen
Army supplies. Sent to military prison Stateside and was
released in 1951. Dropped out of sight and nothing on him
since. No criminal record or arrests for anything in civil
life, as far as I can find in our records.
Odd thing about the case was the fact that they knew
definitely that he’d got away with thousands of dollars
worth of cigarettes and medical supplies, but never did find
any of it or any money. He hadn’t sent any money out of
Italy that they could discover and apparently hadn’t spent
more than the usual GI quota in entertaining the local
belles, nothing at all on liquor because he didn’t drink. He
had lived in Italy before the war, however, and spoke the
language fluently, so probably had good connections. Good
crooked connections, that is.
Nor did they ever catch anybody else involved in the
shenanigan. He probably wasn’t working alone, but they
never did find the others, and he wouldn’t talk. The general
impression seemed to be that he was bored with the trial,
and considered the officers of the court his social inferiors.
Snooty; or did I say that?
Any time I can help you with an easy one like that, just let
me know.
As ever,
CHUCK
There was a postscript. Reno studied it for a long time and shook
his head. It didn’t seem possible, but the more you learned about the
mysterious Conway, the less you understood.
“P. S. They discovered he had a room in town. But when
they searched it, all they found was a vacuum pump, the
kind you use in physics or chemistry lab in college. When
you figure out what he was doing with that, drop me a line,
will you?”
Reno sat on the side of the bed and looked at the cigarette in his
hands. I’m headed in the right direction, he thought, but I’ll be nuts
Go Home, Stranger — 44
before I get there. Mac was killed because he was looking for
Conway. Mrs. Conway was almost killed, apparently for the same
reason. And if you accepted all the evidence and agreed that Conway
and Counsel were the same man, what did you have? You had a
dilettante GI with overtones of larceny, and a vacuum pump, and a
trailer hitch, and a boat that had disappeared. You also had his
showing up back in Italy a year after he was released from military
prison, and something he read in the Waynesport paper . . .
I’ve got to get some sleep, he thought. A few more hours of this and
I’ll be running down the street foaming at the mouth.
* * *
The next morning he felt refreshed, with his mind clear again, and he
knew what he had to do. He bought a secondhand car with out-ofstate
license plates and checked out of the hotel, giving San Francisco
as a forwarding address. Then he bought some fishing tackle, picking
it up in secondhand stores and pawnshops so it wouldn’t be glaringly
new.
Then he went to see Vickie.
She came into the little room with the detective and sat down
across from him at the table as she had done before. There were
shadows under her eyes, and he knew how desperately she was
fighting for composure. Strain, he thought bitterly; nobody could
stand it forever.
“What’s new, Pete?” she asked, trying very hard to smile. She took a
long puff on the cigarette he gave her.
He leaned forward and spoke rapidly, keeping his voice down.
“Conway. He gets riper every time you look at him.” He told her about
reading Mac’s reports, but omitted any mention of the murder
attempt on Mrs. Conway. Vickie had enough on her mind without
worrying about him.
“You think he might be the one who—”
“I don’t know,” he said grimly. “Not yet. But the whole deal is
rotten, and I’m going to find out what it was. And the place to find out
is Counsel Bayou. I’m going down there, but I’m not taking a brass
band or wearing a sandwich board. I’ll keep in touch with you through
Gage. So don’t let any of those damn reporters find out who I am or
where I am, and don’t talk to anybody.”
“It’s dangerous, isn’t it?” she said. —He shook his head. “No. It’s
just that I wouldn’t find out anything.”
Go Home, Stranger — 45
“No,” she said, her voice going thin and tight. “You can’t lie to me,
Pete. And I can’t let you do it. He’s already killed M-Mac.” She had
been holding her face together with an intense and concentrated
effort, but now it all gave way at once and she broke. She put her
head down on her arms and her body shook with crying.
He waited helplessly until she had recovered. When she looked up
at him at last with her eyes full of tears he patted her hand and said,
“Don’t worry about me, Vick. I’ve hunted a lot in that kind of country,
and I know the ground rules. You just hang on a little while longer,
and we’ll have it made.”