 Near Kansas City, Richard Kimble reads a want ad cryptically informing him about the murder of his wife Helen, with a message to phone Eleanor Burnett, the daughter of John Burnett, his defense attorney who is no longer alive. Ellie and her mother Ada had hired a private detective to help find the one-armed man and he believes he now has, but when Kimble arrives to a rendezvous with Ellie she informs him that the one-armed man they discovered died in a fire. Kimble is devastated but checks the story himself and believes it to be true. However the private detective does some more checking and finds the one-armed man who died was incarcerated the night of Helen Kimble s murder, meaning Kimble can still find his wife s killer. Ellie, however, wants Kimble for herself and withholds this information - and faces arrest as Lt. Gerard, a family friend of the Burnetts, has learned from a reluctant Ada of Ellie s rendezvous with Kimble and her plan to fly him out of the country.