“Today is Tuesday,” continued my friend, “and Mr. Parris has been missing only since Sunday evening, so it is possible that he may appear at any moment with a quite reasonable explanation of his absence. Something of the highest importance to him may have occurred which called him away without giving him opportunity to notify Miss Valentine. We dare not assume that, however, for it is also possible that Mr. Parris is at this moment in need of our assistance. Now, Miss Valentine, your fiancé called you on the telephone on Sunday evening—?”
“Shortly after six o’clock,” she took up the story as he paused. “He said that he had just dined, and that he would be over within an hour. I waited, and—he did not come. I supposed that something unexpected had detained him, but when he had not arrived at nine o’clock I became anxious and called his rooms. He was not there and had not been in all evening. Nor had he been seen at his club. There was no further word from him that evening, and there has been none since. I am at my wit’s end, and—”
“Quite so,” interrupted Lavender, smiling, “but we are not, Miss Valentine. So far as it is possible, you will please let us do the worrying from now on.” His engaging smile conjured a feeble response. “You had not planned to go out on Sunday evening?”
“No, we were to spend the evening at home—at my home, of course. Dad was there, and he was very fond of Rupert. They always played a game of chess when Rupert came.”
“Your mother, I think, is dead?”
“Yes.”
“And how long had you known Mr. Parris, Miss Valentine?”
“For about a year. We have been engaged for about three months. The engagement was to have been short. Mr. Parris and my father were both opposed to long engagements.” She paused, then continued: “Perhaps I should tell you that it was largely on my father’s account—for his sake, rather—that Mr. Parris and I became engaged. Dad liked him very much, and when I had come to know him I liked him, too. My father naturally wanted me to marry happily, and he had a high opinion of Mr. Parris, who is somewhat older than I. Do not misunderstand me, please! Of course, I was very much distressed by his disappearance, and I shall do everything in my power to find him. I think I have proved that.”
“I see. Will you describe Mr. Parris for us?”
“He is of middle height, and quite slim; dark hair worn rather longer than usual. Complexion somewhat pale. He was forty-one on his last birthday. I suppose he would be called good-looking.”
“You can give us a photograph, of course?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t. Rupert was averse to having his photograph taken, and I haven’t one in the house.”
Lavender frowned and nodded. He drummed his fingers on his chair-arm for a moment.
“Gilly,” he suddenly said to me, “you must trace that telephone call. Miss Valentine will—”
“You mean Rupert’s—Mr. Parris’s call to me?” asked Miss Valentine quickly. Then she blushed. “I did that, Mr. Lavender!”
“Good for you!” cried Lavender. “I ought to have asked you.”
“Yes,” she continued, “when he didn’t come, I didn’t know what to think, and when I had called his rooms and his club, and no one knew anything about him, I was afraid, and I—I was ashamed to do it—but I traced his call.”
“Admirable!” my friend exclaimed. “The most sensible thing you could have done. Where did it come from?”
“That is strange, too, and I can’t quite believe it. Perhaps the operator made a mistake and traced the wrong call; but I was told that it had come from the office of the Morning Beacon!”
“A newspaper office,” I said quickly. “Then we have another clue.”
“No,” she said, with a shake of her head, “for when I called the Beacon, as I did, nobody ever had heard of Mr. Parris. I had to be very careful, you see, for if I hinted at his disappearance there would have been a dreadful story about it the next morning. I didn’t identify him for them; I just asked for a Mr. Parris who had telephoned from there; but there was no such man in the office, they said, and had not been. When they became curious I thanked them and rang off.”
“Odd,” muttered Lavender, “very odd!” He sat with creased brow for a moment, then leaped to his feet. “No matter, Miss Valentine! We’ll begin at once. I hope before long we shall have a happy report for you.”
The dark young woman stood up and extended her hand. There was embarrassment in her eyes.
“You know,” she faltered, “the wedding date is—set? It is to be—”
“I know,” said Lavender, understanding her hesitation. “It is set for a week from tomorrow. You mean that if there is to be a wedding, and no gossip, I must work quickly. Believe me, Miss Valentine, I shall!”
“Thank you,” she said simply, “I know you will.”
Then with a quick grip of my hand, and a bright, brave look at us both, she was gone. Lavender looked after her thoughtfully.
“A fine girl,” said my friend at length. “If this Parris has jilted her and run away for any reason, I’ll—well, I’ll make him regret it, Gilly, if he’s living!”
“You think that is the case?” I asked.
“It is the obvious answer to the riddle,” he replied. “But certainly I have no right to think it. In fact, I don’t think it as vigorously as I may have suggested it—but it must be considered. After all, the poor devil may be dead, or even—as she suggested—a prisoner somewhere, although it doesn’t look much like abduction. Full grown men are abducted on, their wedding eves only in books.”
I plunged my hand into my pocket. “By George, Lavender,” I exclaimed, handing him the letter the postman had given me, “this was handed me outside the house, and I clean forgot it! And talk about the long arm of coincidence! Look at that return address!”
He received the envelope from my hand and read the printed card in its corner. As plain as print could make it, the inscription invited a return in five days to the Morning Beacon!
“Coincidence?” he asked, looking up with a quizzical smile. “I wonder! The Beacon was suspicious when Miss Valentine called up, remember.”
He tore open the envelope and a card dropped out. There was nothing else. Lavender picked the card from the floor.
“As usual, the plot begins to thicken,” he continued, chuckling. “If this is coincidence, it’s a striking case of it.”
The card bore the engraved name “Mr. Gorman B. Taggart,” and underneath in pencil script, “2:30 P.M.”
“Taggart!” I cried.
“Yes,” said Lavender, “Taggart! Owner and publisher of the Morning Beacon. And he will be here, if I do not misread his laconic message, at 2:30 by his expensive gold watch.” He produced his own, and frowned.
“It’s after 2:30 now,” I contributed uselessly.
“Yes, confound it!” agreed my friend. “I hope he didn’t see Miss Valentine leaving this house! I have a feeling, Gilly, that a curious muddle is developing. There’s the bell now, and in a moment you will see my feeling verified, when Gorman B. Taggart stands upon my rug and tells us the meaning of his visit.”
He walked across to the door and flung it open, and through the aperture there shortly entered the mountainous and well-known figure of the famous newspaper proprietor; thereafter for twenty minutes it occupied a creaking arm-chair by the window.
“Your secretary?” queried Taggart, in a bass rumble. His glance was upon me.
“My assistant,” corrected Lavender politely. “What can we do for you, Mr. Taggart?”
“Damn it!” said Gorman B. Taggart, “I hope you can do a great deal.” He frowned at us both for an instant, then continued: “Mr. Lavender, my circulation manager, Moss Lennard, has been with me for forty years without missing a day, and now I’m afraid something has happened to the old man. He’s been missing since Sunday evening!”
CHAPTER II
We found our pipes soothing after our second visitor had gone away. Lavender looked questioningly at me, and I looked back at him wi
thout a glimmer of light in my brain.
“Muddle is right!”, I said at length. “You guessed it, Jimmie!”
He laughed a little.
“And yet it may clear things amazingly,” he retorted. “That there is a connection between the two I have not the slightest doubt. On the face of things, I would say that they are together, wherever they are—Parris and Lennard. If Taggart’s story is correct—and I must suppose that it is—they must have disappeared at about the same time; and note how easily a theory may be builded that will fit the case. Parris called Miss Valentine shortly after six; that call, traced, is found to have originated in the Beacon office.
“Now for Lennard: after being seen around the place all afternoon—Sunday is a working day for a morning newspaper—he goes out to dinner about half past six and does not return. Lennard is a familiar figure in the Beacon neighborhood, and he was actually seen in conversation with a man, who may very well have been Parris, outside the office; that is what the cigar dealer next door told Taggart. The cigar man knew Lennard, but of course he did not know Parris. Parris could have made his call from any one of a dozen phones in the Beacon office without being seen—of course, with the connivance of Lennard.
“Our first theory, then, would shape up about like this: Parris, for reasons of his own, as yet unknown, goes to see old Lennard at the Beacon office, and—obviously—discharges at him some revelation that alarms the older man. Whatever it is, it is important enough to make both seek safety in flight. Of course, it follows that they have known each other for some time. We shall have to look into the past of both these gentlemen before we are through; meanwhile, instead of one man we have two to look for, and our task is simplified because by finding one we at least get word of the other.
“We shall have to proceed carefully, for we can’t let Taggart suspect that we are looking for any one other than Lennard. For Taggart we are running down only Moss Lennard, for Miss Valentine we are seeking Rupert Parris; two cases ostensibly; yet we know that we are working the same case. Really, it begins to look very promising.”
“I’m glad you think so, Lavender,” I said dryly. “To me it looks like a bigger job than ever. Two missing men—twice as much work.”
“No, half as much,” he corrected. “Our description of Parris might be better; as it stands, it will fit hundreds of fellows of his class. We are better off with Lennard. Taggart’s description is clear enough, and here is the photograph he left. Well-preserved old chap, isn’t he? I’ll have a copy made for you, and you can carry it around with you. I’ve an idea that we shall find Moss Lennard before we find Rupert Parris. And now for an important question: Did these two skip together, or did they separate?”
“If they are seeking safety from something, they probably separated,” I promptly. answered.
“You may be right. That is what they should have done, of course. Well, our first step must be to visit the haunts of each. Parris lived at the Sheridan Arms, and belonged to the November Club. Lennard, Taggart said, is an old bachelor, and has three rooms in a private house on the West Side. We may as well work together, at first anyway, for it’s little we’ll learn at the Sheridan, and we can proceed almost at once to Lennard’s place.”
We taxied to the Sheridan Arms and learned exactly what Lavender had expected—nothing, or practically nothing, that we did not already know. Parris had not been seen at the hotel on the Sunday of his disappearance and had not called up. Nobody thought anything of this, because Parris was not often seen at the hotel, anyway; he maintained a room for his occasional convenience and was supposed to spend his time at the club. There was nothing in his room to suggest that he had left it permanently; indeed there was much to suggest that he would certainly return—expensive garments, pipes, knickknacks, a pigskin suitcase, and the usual impedimenta of a bachelor’s chamber, including a handsome photograph of Miss Dale Valentine in a silver frame.
A chat with the switchboard operator gave us our single fact of interest, and that merely added weight to our already acquired knowledge. The girl testified that several times in recent weeks Parris—who was well-known to her by sight—had telephoned to the Beacon office, and each time she had heard him ask for Mr. Lennard. She had never overheard any conversation between the two, however, and Parris never had stayed long in the booth.
“At least,” said Lavender, “we have established a connection between them.”
At the November Club little more was to he learned. Parris was not often on hand; at any rate, he was seldom seen in the lounge; and although he had a room, it was mot much occupied. He came and went without question, and it was not always known when he was in the place and when he was not. He did not court publicity, and to us it was apparent that for reasons of his own he must divide his time between the hotel and the club, so far as sleeping was concerned.
“A queer bird, this Parris,” commented Lavender, as we left the last place. He looked at his watch. “Now, Gilly, if we haven’t lost Lennard’s address, we should be able to get out there and back before dinner time. Remember we are to dine with the great Gorman B. Taggart at his club, and although he may be five minutes late for an appointment, we may not.”
Moss Lennard, circulation manager of the Beacon for many, years, lived far out on West Jackson Boulevard, but our taxi deposited us before his door in a little time; and here for the first time we received a scrap of highly important information. Although Taggart certainly had caused inquiries to be made at Lennard’s rooms, apparently they had been of a perfunctory character, and no doubt by telephone, for the housekeeper was able to tell us at once that Lennard had gone to Milwaukee.
“Yes, sir,” said the elderly female, with a series of nods, “Mr. Lennard went up to Milwaukee by the night boat, sir, on Sunday. That is, he told me he was going to Milwaukee, sir, and by the night boat, and so I suppose that is what he did. Didn’t say when he would be back, sir, and naturally I didn’t ask him. ’Twasn’t my business, and Mr. Lennard is not a boy, sir. He’s a man that knows very well how to take care of himself. He’s been here, off and on, for a good many years, and we never worried when he was away.”
“He was away a good deal?” asked Lavender.
“No doubt,” replied our garrulous informant. I “Yes, I suppose he was. Him being a newspaper man, sir, he was often away on duty for days at a time. Sometimes he stayed at the office; sometimes he was out of town; sometimes he was here. We never bothered about Mr. Lennard. And on Sunday morning he said to me, ‘Mrs. Barrett’—that being my name, sir—I’m going up to Milwaukee tonight by the night boat. I don’t feel well, Mrs. Barrett,’ he said, ‘and a lake trip is what I need, and it’s little time I get during the day for boats,’ he said. And so he went, and if he is not back at his office, then you may be sure he’s stayed in Milwaukee. Never fear, sir, about Mr. Lennard.”
“Quite so,” said Lavender, who had followed this long speech with polite attention, “but it seems strange, nevertheless, Mrs. Barrett, that he did not notify his office that he was going; and it is stranger still that, finding he could not get back the next day, he did not wire. I represent Mr. Taggart, as I have told you, and he is anxious about Mr. Lennard. He asked me to look, into Mr. Lennard’s rooms while I was here, to see if Mr. Lennard had left a note maybe, or something of the sort—possibly, an address in Milwaukee, eh?”
The old woman sniffed.
“It’s a strange time for Mr. Taggart to be anxious,” she asserted scornfully, “and him paying Mr. Lennard a salary which he should be ashamed to give a man after forty years! Many’s the time I’ve heard Mr. Lennard say that he wouldn’t stand it much longer, no he wouldn’t. He could get more money on any other paper, he said, and it was only loyalty that kept him to the Morning Beacon. Yes, sir, loyalty is what it was! He’d been with ’em from a lad. And now because he takes a little trip to Milwaukee—”
“Was Mr. Lennard a drinking man?” interrupted Lavender with a smile, edging past her into the hall.
“Well, sir, he certainly was that, sometimes, but never a rough word from him, or a sound out of his room. He drank his liquor, sir, like a gentleman. Yes, sir, you can see his rooms; as neat and clean as a pin they are—”
Still mumbling she turned away, and we followed her into the dark hallway and up a flight of stairs to the second story, where she opened a door and asked us to enter. When she had pushed an electric, button we looked around us upon a comfortable sitting room, every detail of which bore out her claims as to its neatness. But Lavender’s interest at once was centered upon an old desk that stood beside the front window. He crossed to it, with only a hasty glance at the bedroom which opened off the sitting room.
“This, I suppose, is his desk? Very interesting indeed! And as you say, Mrs. Barrett, not an empty bottle about the place.” He winked at me. “A fine gentleman, this Mr. Lennard. I can see. Well now, about that Milwaukee address—” And he began to rummage with a practised hand in the drawers of the old desk.
His search was unrewarded by anything of value, and he turned his attention to the waste basket, still half full of old papers, while I explored the bedroom. When I returned, Lavender, with a gleam in his eye, was saying good-by to the housekeeper. It occurred to me that he had found something. At any rate, he was pressing a coin into the old lady’s willing palm.
“Thank you very much,” I heard him say. “Come on, Gilly, we must get along or we shall be late for dinner. the way, Mrs. Barrett, did Mr. Lennard ever make any trips home?”
“Home?” echoed our humble servant. “You mean to Washburn? Well, yes, sir, but not very often. Only twice that I can remember while he’s been here. But I’ve often heard him speak of his old home. That’s where he was born.”
“Of course,” said Lavender. “Washburn, Indiana, isn’t it?”
“No, sir,. Washburn, Illinois. Right here in our own state. Mr. Lennard is one of our great men, sir, like Lincoln and Grant and Logan—”
“And Roosevelt,” interrupted Lavender wickedly. “Well, that is very interesting. Thank you very much.”
The Detective Megapack Page 6
