Charles Williams: Go Home, Stranger

“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 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, tear-streaked 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.

“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’t-help 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 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.”

“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?”