Man on The Run by Charles Williams(8)

The dresser held not a scrap of paper of any kind.
I even felt under the bottoms of the drawers the
way they did in movies. Letters, letters—now where
the hell would she keep old letters? I straightened
and started to turn, looking futilely around the
room. My gaze stopped suddenly and backed up
and I gasped, feeling my scalp tingle.
The door of the bathroom was partly open, and
from this side of the room I could see in past the
edge of it. The light was poor, but there was no
doubt that what I saw was the sloping end of. an
old-fashioned bathtub, and hanging inertly from the
edge of it a slender and very shapely leg. I reached
the door in two strides, pushed it open, and
snapped on the light. When I looked down into the
tub I had to fight to keep from being sick.
She was lying on her back with her eyes open,
staring up at me through about six inches of water
with the long black hair floating around her face.
Her head was almost under the spigots, one of
which was dripping intermittently and shattering
Man on The Run — 122

Man on The Run by Charles Williams(7)

“Go ahead. But when you get through I want you
to listen to me for a minute. Okay?”
“Right,” I said. I told him about trying to follow
Frances Celaya home and what had happened. “So
she saw me in Stedman’s apartment that night,” I
finished. “That’s the only way in the world she
could have recognized me. She knew I was after
her, and she tried to kill me.”
“But did you see her in the apartment?”
“No. I didn’t see anybody. Except Stedman.”
“Then what put you on her trail?”
”I can’t tell you that,” I said. “It involves a friend
of mine.”
“Your story doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know it doesn’t. I’m just telling you what
happened. I don’t know anything about her at all,
or why she’d want to kill Stedman. I can’t tell you
who that big goon is, or even what he looks like,
because it was too dark. But I’m pretty sure he’s a
seaman or used to be one.”
“Why?”
“When he was telling the girl to watch me, he
said if I came around, to sing out. Sing out is a
seagoing expression, and one of the few that
sailors ever use ashore. And that thing I hit him
with was a fid.”
“What’s a fid?”
“It’s a heavy wooden spike, pointed at one end
and rounded on the other, and it’s used in splicing
line. So he might be working ashore as a rigger, or
on small boats of some kind.”
“All right,” he said brusquely. “Now I want to
give you some advice, Foley. I don’t think you
realize the dangerous spot you’re in, so let me spell
it out for you. It’s probably the luck of the stupid
Irish, but you’ve been fouling up the police force of
a whole city for a week. There are several hundred

Man on The Run by Charles Williams(6)

She boarded a Montlake bus, the number seven
line. Two more passengers got on after her, and
then I climbed aboard. She had found a seat and
opened the magazine and didn’t look up as I went
past. I went on to the rear and sat down.
I opened the paper and pretended to read,
keeping my face down. The bus turned north along
a heavily traveled arterial. We passed a district of
apartment houses. Several passengers got off. She
went on reading. After awhile the bus swung off
onto quieter streets and we went past a large
housing development. At every stop one or two
passengers debarked. Soon there were only five of
us left. I wondered why she lived so far out; we
must be miles from downtown. Then she put the
magazine away and started watching the stops.
“Stevens,” the driver called out. She gathered up
her things and came back to the rear door. The bus
stopped and she got down. The door closed, but
just before we got under way again I glanced up
suddenly from my paper and asked, “This
Stevens?”
“That’s right,” the driver said. I grabbed the
briefcase and got off. The bus went on. I took out a
cigarette and stood momentarily on the corner as I
lighted it. It was a run-down district of older frame
houses. Diagonally across the intersection a service
station was a glaring oasis of light, but there were
few cars on the street. She crossed the intersection
and turned right opposite the service station, going
up the sidewalk under the trees on the far side. As
Man on The Run — 87

Man on The Run by Charles Williams(5)

inside when she heard Mrs. Purcell scream and
then run out of the house.
“The police were there within minutes. Purcell
was slumped over his desk in the living room, shot
through the temple with his own thirty-eight. The
shoulder holster was where he always left it when
he came home, hanging on a hook in the hall
closet. The gun was lying on the rug beside his
chair. They could get only partial prints off it, but
they were all his. There was no sign of a struggle at
all, and nothing to indicate anybody else had been
there. The gate to the backyard was locked, and
nobody in the block had seen anyone come or go
from the front of the house. It couldn’t have been
an accident, because all his gun-cleaning
equipment was put away in the kitchen. There was
no note, but on the desk just under his face was a
single sheet of white paper and a ballpoint pen, as
if he’d started to write one and then changed his
mind.”
It was baffling. “What do you think?” I asked.
“That he was murdered.”
“Why?”