Missing Men
Copyright© 2025 by Vincent Starrett
Chapter 4
As usual, Lavender was right. His prescience was astounding. We were not finished with breakfast in the morning when the telephone bell rang, and at the other end of the connection was Miss Minor. Lavender listened to her message.
“I see,” he replied. “Yes, I quite expected it, Miss Minor. In fact, I have waiting for your call. Naturally there is no further occasion for my services. Was it a phone call, may I ask, or a wire.”
He listened again.
“I understand. Very well, Miss Minor. And if ever again I can be of service to you, remember that I shall be glad to serve. Good-by!”
The last words fell like clods upon my heart. Lavender was smiling oddly as he turned away.
“Finis coronat opus,” said he. “That means, Gilly, ‘the end crowns the work.’ We are politely, courteously, but definitely and conclusively ‘fired,’ as it were. Miss Minor has heard from her father—a wire early this morning, saying merely that he was well and would be home soon.”
“How did you know she would hear from him?” I asked morosely.
“I knew that she was bound to. You see, he found out that I was on his trail and was afraid that I would make his disappearance look like something it was never intended to be. When he went away he had no idea of the publicity that would follow his action, and he had no thought that his daughter would return and start a hunt for him. He managed it all rather badly, as a matter of fact.”
“Do you suppose he returned to the club and they told him there that we were looking for him?”
“No, I don’t believe he’s been near the club. I think Miss Kane told him.”
“Miss Kane!” I shouted. “What has Miss Kane to do with this case?”
“A great deal,” said Lavender, “since she was undoubtedly at the bottom of Minor’s disappearance, as she was at the bottom of the Vanderdonck-Merritt disappearance. You remember I told you that I had contrived to bring Minor’s name into my conversation with her yesterday? I did it purposely, so she would tell him. I thought it would inform him of his daughter’s return and that this action would follow.”
“Good Lord,” I groaned. “What is the secret of it all, Lavender? Why did he go away? Why did Merritt masquerade as Vanderdonck, or Vanderdonck as Merritt? And what has Miss Kane to do with all of them?”
“I’ll tell you how it works out, Gilly, as nearly as I can. And I must tell you about my investigations of last night. They have a bearing on your questions.
“I went to Elmhurst, as I explained. In fact, I went twice—once after leaving Miss Kane in the afternoon, and once after the evening performance. On the latter occasion I followed Miss Kane. In the afternoon I merely made inquiries in the neighborhood. Miss Kane has lived there for about three months, I was informed by the rental agency, with an invalid brother and a maid. At first I naturally thought that the invalid brother was the man I wanted, but the three months knocked that idea in the head for Minor has been living at home and has been at his club until a week ago, while the invalid brother lives with Miss Kane and doesn’t go out any place.”
“Then he’s Vanderdonck!” I said.
“Well,” demurred Lavender, “I suppose it’s conceivable, but I don’t agree, Gilly. Really, the same objection applies to Vanderdonck. No, in my theory of this amusing case, he can’t be Vanderdonck, either. I may as well tell you at once that I believe not only that Vanderdonck was Merritt, but that Minor was both of them!”
I sat up very straight in my chair and stared at him for a moment in silence.
“I’m not crazy,” he replied to my glance. “I don’t think I am, Gilly. I’m admitting that the invalid brother may be Vanderdonck, and that Minor may be some place else. I’m even admitting that the invalid brother may be just himself, an honest-to-goodness invalid brother of Miss Kane. But I don’t think so. Everything points to the truth of my idea that Merritt, Vanderdonck, and Minor are one and the same individual, playing a game. And Minor isn’t anxious that his daughter shall discover what that game is, as least not until it is played out. That’s why he wired Miss Shirley and why we were called off. We were getting too ‘warm,’ as the boys say. Of course Miss Minor had no idea that in releasing us she was playing her father’s game.”
He shook his head. “What puzzles me, however, is that invalid brother. If he isn’t Minor, and isn’t Vanderdonck, to accept your idea for a moment, who is he, unless he is just himself?”
“I think he’s Mrs. Jameson,” I said with a grin.
Lavender laughed. “No,” he replied. “She, at least, has nothing to do with this case. She just happens to have disappeared on the same day.
“Well, to continue. Having learned nothing in particular yesterday afternoon, I followed Miss Kane home last night. I wanted to see whom, if anybody, she would meet at her home. She met nobody. There were lights in the place for some time, chiefly upstairs, but after she had closed the door I didn’t have even a second glimpse of Miss Kane. Not a shadow on the blind. Finally darkness fell over the house, and I came home. I’m very much afraid indeed that the invalid brother is not a myth, that he actually exists—if for no other reason than to complicate this case.”
“And you have no idea why Minor is doing all this?”
“Oh, yes, a sort of an idea, Gilly, but it isn’t complete. I don’t understand why Miss Shirley has not known all about it from the beginning. There’s nothing heinous in it that I can see.”
“And now I suppose we shall never know,” I suggested.
“I think we will,” said Lavender. “I think that Minor himself will look us up to see how much we know, and to tell us the rest, so that we will keep our mouths shut.”
However, it came about rather differently, for we had talked barely an hour when again our telephone bell rang and again it was Miss Shirley Minor who called. Lavender’s expression was one of comical relief as he listened to what she had to say.
“Quite right, quite right!” he said. And a minute later, “Yes, I think I can. Can you join us? Then please do. Come at once!”
There was a gleam in his eye when he had hung up the receiver.
“Off again, on again,” he chuckled. “It gets better, Gilly! Miss Minor distrusts her wire. She doesn’t believe her father sent it and she is more alarmed than ever. It seems that the telegram was signed ‘Father,’ instead of ‘Dad,’ and I think the young lady’s point is well taken. If he always signed himself ‘Dad,’ he should have done so this time. It is such slips that betray criminals. Now I know what happened. Minor didn’t send the wire and Miss Kane did, probably unknown to Minor.
“Well, it should be over shortly. Miss Minor asked me if I knew where her father was. She had an idea that I did because I had told her that she would hear from him. I took a chance and said ‘Yes!’ She’s on her way here now.”
I looked startled. “Can you make good on that, Jimmie?” I cautiously asked.
“Well, I can at least bluff Miss Kane,” he replied, “and that is what I propose to do. We’ll drive out with Miss Shirley herself and surprise the actress lady at her tardy breakfast. I think something interesting will develop. It will be dramatic and you had better possess your soul in patience till we get there. I won’t spoil it for you.”
He flung himself into a chair and gave himself over to some deep thinking. “Please don’t talk for a few minutes, Gilly,” he cautioned me.