The Detective Megapack®

THE TAGGART ASSIGNMENT, by Vincent Starrett-4

“Well,” drawled my friend, recovering his self-possession and lighting his pipe, “it is just conceivable, you know, that she has heard from Parris!”

“By Jove!” I cried.

“That is too obvious not to be considered,” he continued; “but there are difficulties in the way. If she has heard from Parris, and Parris is responsible for the death of Lennard, as he may very well be, then she is protecting him. She might even do that, of course, but somehow I don’t think so. She doesn’t really care enough about him for that. She may be protecting him without knowing the truth, or as I say, in spite of the truth. On the other hand, she may be perfectly honest in her statement to us. In any case, we seem to have been properly fired. How does it feel to be discharged, Gilly?”

“Are we definitely out of it?”

“Unless I carry my suspicions to the police, I fancy we are. And my suspicions are only suspicions. Lennard’s body is unmarked. I could carry my tale to Taggart, perhaps, and work with him again; but that would be betraying Miss Valentine, which is not to be considered. It looks as if we were out of a job, Gully!”

But we were not out long. Before our pipes had been refilled twice the telephone rang, and on the other end of the connection was Gorman B. Taggart. Taggart, too, had reconsidered.

“Look here, Lavender,” he said to my friend, as at Lavender’s nod I picked up the extension receiver and listened in, “has it occurred to you that there may have been something irregular in Lennard’s death?”

“Yes,” replied Lavender promptly, “it has! But there’s not a shred of actual evidential proof. What makes you ask?”

“Nothing but my conscience, I’m afraid,” said Taggart mournfully. “If I could think that I was not indirectly responsible for this, I’d be a happy man, Lavender.”

“Then,” said my friend, “try to be happy. I can’t promise anything, but if you want me to go ahead with my suspicions and see where they lead, I’ll be glad to make the attempt.”

“Fine!” boomed the voice of Taggart. “Go ahead! Unlimited funds behind you, and report when you’ve got something to report. Good-by!”

Lavender hung up the receiver with a smile of wicked pleasure.

“We’re never out of a job long, anyway,” he murmured. Then he bounded to his feet. “Gilly, I’m off to see Lennard’s housekeeper, the garrulous, and perhaps bibulous, Mrs. Barrett. You’re off to see Miss Dale Valentine. Tell her of the finding of Lennard’s body, if she doesn’t know, and that Parris and Lennard are known to have been together. The Lennard affair is probably in the papers, and she may have seen it; possibly that’s what brought her here this morning. Tell her, anyway, and try to find out whether she has heard directly or indirectly from Parris. Don’t frighten her. We’re asking for assistance, not threatening her; but she must understand that we are now employed by Taggart in this affair. You can explain that we have not betrayed her confidence, She’ll see you, I think—I thought she liked your hair.”

He seized a handful of cigars and a package of cigarettes from his humidor, and we descended the stairs to the street, A gray-haired old man was approaching, our door, and at sight of us he stopped.

“Mr. Lavender?” he asked, glancing from one to the other of us. My friend nodded, and he continued: “I am Arthur Valentine. My daughter, I believe, has consulted you about the curious absence of her fiancé, Mr. Rupert Parris, May I ask whether you have made any headway in the matter?”

Lavender seemed surprised. He shook his head.

“We are no longer in Miss Valentine’s employ,” he said quietly. “I believe Mr. Parris has not been found, but you will have to consult your daughter, Mr. Valentine.”

The old man, for whom a handsome car, was waiting, stared at us in astonishment.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand you,” he said at length. “My daughter said nothing to me about concluding the search. This is very strange. You know nothing, then?”

“Nothing whatever,” said Lavender politely. “Have you any theory of your own?”

Valentine shook his head. “I am not in my daughter’s confidence in this matter,”, he replied almost sadly. “I was on my way to the office, and I thought I would stop in and see you. Until yesterday my daughter and I discussed this matter freely, but last night she seemed worried, and ths morning she left the house early, refusing to talk. I thought that perhaps she had. heard something that distressed her.”

“Not at all,” said Lavender cheerfully. “Not from us, at any rate. She called this morning and dispensed with our services, Mr. Valentine; that is all I can tell you.”

With a word of thanks Valentine turned away. Lavender thoughtfully watched him until his machine had turned the corner and disappeared.

“Last night!” he said. “What did Miss Valentine learn last night, Gilly, that made her refuse further to discuss matters with her father?”

After a moment he shrugged, and at that instant a taxicab came into sight. He flagged it with upraised hand.

“A great day, eh?” he smiled, as if nothing had occurred to make him think. “Better come back here, Gilly, when you’re through. I’ll return as quickly as possible.”

As luck would have it, Miss Valentine had not gone directly to her home, and in consequence she was not there when I called. I waited in the house for an hour, and spent another hour in the streets nearby; then as she had not appeared I returned to Lavender’s rooms where he impatiently awaited me.

“Odd!” he commented, when he had heard what I had to tell. “Well, we’ll call her up from time to time. We must talk with her.”

“What about Mrs. Barrett?” I demanded.

“I begin to see light, Gilly,” he replied gravely. “I fancy I know what Miss Valentine heard last night, or part of it; her father may have revealed something innocently enough which set her on the right track. I’ll tell you the whole story, and you can see what you make of it. This, in effect, is what Mrs. Barrett had to tell. She was prostrated, of course, by Lennard’s death, and glad to tell everything she knew.

“Lennard came from Washburn, as she told us before. In his youth there was an unhappy love affair, as a result of which he never married. A Miss Mary Glover was his sweetheart, and on the eve of their wedding, almost, she jilted him and married a wealthy man in the city—that is, in Chicago. Prepare to be shocked. We met the wealthy man this morning.”

“Great Jupiter!” I cried. “Not Valentine?”

“Jupiter and Jove, too,” he agreed. “Yes, Arthur Valentine. In short, Lennard was engaged to marry Miss Valentine’s mother, and was turned down cold for money. Who shall say what tortures he suffered and what revenges he planned? Lennard came to Chicago, and no doubt kept track of the social rise of the Valentines. He was fortunately situated in a newspaper office; he knew all that went on. In time Dale Valentine was born, and in time Mrs. Valentine died. Dale Valentine grew up into—well, you know into what she grew. She had suitors, among them Rupert Parris, who became the successful one.

“Here, then, would be a splendid opportunity for Lennard’s deferred revenge. Jilted by the mother himself, if he could contrive to have the daughter jilted on her wedding eve how poetic would be his revenge! I don’t defend this course; I say it may very well have occurred to him. Suppose then that he contrives to meet Parris, to do him services, and at the same time to learn something about Parris that is not to Parris’s credit. We can learn nothing of Parris’s past. It may have been anything. But would it be enough to threaten Parris with exposure? Would Parris vanish at a threat? Not necessarily. Lennard’s hold would have to be pretty strong for that.

“But suppose Lennard combines with his threat of exposure some manufactured tale, say about Dale Valentine’s mother, whose memory he both loves and loathes! If Parris were a gentleman he would resent it; if he were a coward in masquerade, probably he would not. But gentleman or coward, what would Parris do? I think he would try to stop Lennard’s mouth, either for his own sake, or for the sake of Miss Valentine. Did he do it?”

“I’m afraid he did, Lavender,” I confessed. “You make it seem very probable. But what hold could Lennard have had over Parris?”

“A queer one, you may be sure. It’s almost the kernel of the riddle.”

“And what do you think Miss Valentine learned from her father?”

“Merely, perhaps that he had once had an unsuccessful rival in love whose name was Lennard. It would be enough. Miss Valentine would couple it with the story in the newspapers about the discovery of Lennard’s body. Or perhaps she already knew, through her mother years ago, that Lennard had been her father’s rival. If so, the newspaper story about Lennard would revive that memory. But I think something her father said put her on the track of the truth, for he told us that it was last night that she began to be preoccupied and silent. All of which, of course, would be insufficient to convince her of what is possibly the truth, if she had not heard from Parris. She must have received a letter last night, and I’d give a good deal to know what it revealed.”

I turned it all over in my head, and to me it seemed complicated enough to bother anybody. But one thing I was certain of.

“The time has come, Lavender, to tell Taggart the whole story,” I said flatly.

“Yes,” he agreed instantly, “we must be frank with Taggart; we can’t play two games now. He must print no word of the affair, of course; and I think he will not wish to, for it will reflect on Lennard to some extent—his own man.”

He swung to the telephone and called up the Valentine home.

“This is Gorman B. Taggart speaking,” he said deliberately into the mouthpiece, “the publisher of the Morning Beacon. I wish to speak to Miss Valentine.” There was a silence and then his tone changed. “Out?” he cried. “Out of town? Are you sure? When did she leave? A letter, eh? I am very sorry; I have important news for her. Can you say where she went? To what station, then? A ten o’clock train! Yes, Mr. Taggart speaking! Now listen, please. I want you to remember what Miss Valentine wore to the train. It is important, for I am going to send a man to see her, and he must be able to identify her.”

After this there was a longer silence, at the end of which Lavender coolly said, “Thank you,” and hung up. He was tremendously excited.

“Gone!” he cried. “Gone out of town on a ten o’clock train, this morning. There was a letter last night, as I suspected. They deceived you at the house, Gilly. They knew then that she had gone.”

“Yes,” I said, “gone to meet Parris!”

He swung back to the telephone and gave a strange number quickly. Then he asked an astonishing question.

“A young woman, dark and very pretty, wearing a heavy veil, was there this morning and asked to see the body of Moss Lennard. Was she allowed to see it?”

He listened to the reply, then with at word of thanks rang off.

“Miss Valentine saw Lennard’s body this morning, after leaving these rooms. She examined Lennard’s garments. She went away in a taxicab. By George, Gilly, that girl has spunk! It took nerve to do that!”