Remington took his eyes from the road as he and Daniel headed toward the meeting with Valmont. Daniel had been quiet since they had gotten into the Rabbit and headed out. "I learned a long time ago not to make promises carte blanche, Daniel," he commented with a wry grin.
"If- anything should ever- happen to me- I want your promise that you'll keep an eye on Effie."
Another glance at Daniel revealed a hint of seriousness in the man's face. "Nothing's going to happen to you, Daniel," Remington insisted.
"Please, Harry?" Remington saw the worry in those eyes and smiled.
"I promise, Daniel. From what I saw, she could stand someone to look after her- if for no other reason than to keep her from falling victim to someone like you."
"Harry- I have NEVER- I repeat NEVER- conned little old ladies out of their life savings," Daniel declared in an affronted tone of voice.
"I hardly think Effie Davenport fits in that category, Daniel. The land her house is on is worth six figures alone."
"She inherited the money from her father," Daniel explained. "Clyde bought the house after they married."
"Hmm," Remington responded as he steered the little car around a corner. "There they are," he announced, indicating the sleek black limousine parked before them. "Let me do the talking, okay, Daniel?" he muttered, and didn't bother to look at his companion for an agreement. As they slowed, Jonathan got out of the driver's side and opened the back door for Archie Valmont.
Remington parked the Rabbit twenty feet from the limo, then got out, but remained beside the car, at Daniel's side.
"It's been a long time, Daniel," Valmont said.
"Not long enough, Archie," Daniel replied.
Those cold gray eyes slid to Remington. "Steele."
Remington didn't say anything, simply nodded in Valmont's direction, and at Jonathan. He had met the second man once, just after he had hooked up with Daniel. Remington hadn't liked the man. There had been a coldness about him - a lack of feeling- that was deeply troubling.
"Did you bring it?" Valmont asked, drawing Remington's attention.
Remington put a hand into the back of the car, an easy task, since he'd lowered the top. "It's here. Where is Miss Holt?" he asked.
Valmont nodded once in Jonathan's direction. Jonathan opened the rear door once again, and pulled a handcuffed Laura from the back seat. She jerked away from him, and Remington saw that she was furious- probably as much at herself as she was at her captors.
"Are you okay?" Remington asked.
"I'm fine," Laura told him, as Valmont answered the question as well.
"I can assure you that your associate is undamaged, Mr. Steele." He held out his hand. "My Monet, if you please."
Remington glanced at Daniel, then lifted the unframed canvas from the back seat, keeping the painting between himself and Jonathan. A few steps forward, and Valmont's hands closed around the edges, but Remington held on. "An even trade. Miss Holt for the Monet."
"You must take me for a fool, Steele," Valmont sneered softly. "How do I know this isn't simply another copy that Daniel is trying to palm off on me?"
"Believe me," Remington assured him, "it's the genuine article. But if you'd feel better for examining it-" he released the canvas, and Valmont very nearly fell back onto the car. "Be my guest." As Valmont turned away, Remington's eyes met Laura's in silent communication.
Valmont placed the canvas on the rear of the car, then took out a jeweler's glass to examine it in more detail. Then he lifted the canvas to examine the back, especially the stretcher. He lifted the painting, starting to laugh. "It's real! After all these years, I finally have it back! Isn't it lovely? The colours just seem to leap off the canvas-" Laura cleared her throat, causing Valmont to nod, obviously too enraptured by the Monet to bother looking at her. "Release Miss Holt, Jonathan," he ordered, his gaze still on the painting in his hands.
Laura lifted her arms, allowing Jonathan to unlock the cuffs, before crossing quickly to join Remington and Daniel. As they turned toward the car, Valmont spoke again. "One last thing-" he said, and the three of them stopped in their tracks and turned to look at him. "I want Chalmers."
Remington and Laura both looked at Daniel, and Remington shook his head as he swung back to Valmont. "That wasn't part of the deal, Valmont."
Valmont lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "It must have- slipped my mind. Can't let him get away with what he did. Have to make an example."
"The same way you made an example of those two in London?"
"Precisely, Mr. Steele," Valmont said with a smile. "I'm so glad that we understand each other. Jonathan-"
As Jonathan lifted his gun, Remington drew the Agency's gun from his own pocket, squaring off against Valmont's hired killer. "We seem to be at a standoff," he noted. "Laura, Daniel, into the car."
"Mr. Steele," Laura began, and Remington winced. Why couldn't the woman just do what he told her to do? Just this once?
"Don't argue with me, Laura. Get behind the wheel. Drop it, Jonathan." Jonathan didn't waver. "You'll have to kill me to get to Daniel. And I don't think that's part of your plans. Killing someone like Daniel would be easy to cover up. But killing myself and Miss Holt- that's a different story entirely."
"You're a fool to risk your life for someone like Chalmers, Steele. He's not worth it."
"I happen to think he is," Remington said.
"Harry, I appreciate the gesture, but-"
"Be quiet, Daniel," Remington ground out. "I'm trying to save your life."
Jonathan stood as still as a statue, his gun trained in a direct line toward Daniel- through Remington. "You're not a killer, Steele," Valmont pointed out, the painting still in his hands. "While Jonathan is."
"That may be true," Remington agreed. "But the question is- which of us is quicker?" He saw Jonathan's fingers tighten on the trigger. "Can he shoot me," he wondered, quickly bringing his weapon to bear on Valmont, "Before I shoot you?" Valmont shrank back against the limo. "I'm going to count to three. And if Jonathan hasn't dropped his gun before I finish- then, well, let's just say that your heirs will have the pleasure of enjoying the Monet in your absence. One-" he heard Jonathan cock the pistol and dropped to one knee, firing at the same time in Jonathan's direction. Laura and Daniel ducked at the sound.
The bullet hit Jonathan squarely in the chest, while Jonathan's bullet broke the windshield of the Rabbit, hitting the seat where Daniel had been sitting moments before. Daniel swallowed nervously as he looked at it, then toward the scene between the cars.
Jonathan staggered to his knees, a look of shocked surprise
on his face at the gaping hole in his chest, before he fell face
first into the grass. Without missing a beat, Remington pointed
the gun at Valmont again. "Into the car, Valmont," Remington
said, motioning toward the open door. Valmont took the painting
and sat down in the back seat of the car. "Close the door
and lay down in the seat." He waited for Valmont to follow
his instructions. "You have your Monet, Valmont," Remington
told the man, backing toward the Rabbit as Laura started the engine.
"I'd be satisfied with that. Revenge isn't worth the effort."
Getting into the car, he sat back, trying to breathe normally.
Glancing at Laura, he said, "Get us out of here."
Mildred met them in the reception area, which, Laura noticed, was spotlessly clean again. "Oh, Miss Holt. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Mildred," she assured the older woman as Remington handed Mildred the Agency gun, after first removing the remaining five bullets from the cylinder.
Mildred took the bullets, and frowned. "What happened out there?" she asked.
Daniel tried to slip out of the office, but Laura pointed that out to Remington, and both quickly headed him off. "Going somewhere, Daniel?" Laura asked.
"Thought I'd let you two discuss this between yourselves- without my meddling-"
Remington put an arm around his old friend's shoulders. "Now, Daniel. You're not the meddling type. Besides, I believe that we have a conversation to finish, don't we? You were going to tell me all about how Harold Davenport of Los Angeles became Daniel Chalmers, I believe."
"HAROLD Davenport?" Laura questioned. "As in Clyde Davenport?"
"They were brothers," Remington told her as he turned Daniel toward his office.
"Brothers?" Laura repeated. "How interesting," she said, opening the door for them. "Mildred, could you make some tea, please? And then you might as well join us for the whole, sordid tale."
"On my way, Miss Holt," Mildred said with a smile, hurrying to make the requested tea.
Remington practically forced Daniel into the chair again. "Comfortable?" he asked.
"Harry- Linda-"
"Laura," she corrected. "As you well know. You're not squirming out of this, *Harold*, so you might as well start singing."
Daniel winced at her use of the name. "Really, Laura. I do prefer Daniel. As a matter of fact, it's my middle name." Laura and Remington looked at each other, and then at Daniel in patent disbelief. "It is. Harold Daniel Davenport. Harold for my paternal grandfather, and Daniel after my mother's father." He sighed. "It's an old story, I'm afraid. The younger son who rebelled against a too strict father and struck out alone in the world to make his own way-"
"A poor, homeless waif, unloved," Remington added. "I've heard this story before, Daniel. And with more feeling."
"But it's the truth, Harry," Daniel insisted, sounding tired. "Our mother died when I was very young- I barely remember what she looked like. Clyde was several years older than I- he was already in college, with a bright future ahead of him as an attorney when I set out at fourteen to find my own path. Nothing I did was good enough for our father. I could never be as bright, or as successful as Clyde. I was never as good in my studies, never had friends that my father approved of. So one day, I decided to simply- leave." Daniel rose from the chair as Mildred entered with the tea and sat down on the other side of Remington from Laura to listen as Daniel continued to talk. "When our father died four years later, I came home, expecting to be welcomed with open arms, I suppose."
"The prodigal son," Laura suggested softly, placing her hand on Remington's arm.
"Something like that. But Clyde decided that he was going to make everything up to me- He had just married Effie- and her father's money. I simply couldn't handle being around the woman. And I couldn't understand Clyde's having married her at all. She was- for want of a better term- less than bright. Grated on my nerves to be in the same room with her for more than a few hours. But I stuck around for a year, until I got into a little trouble- got picked up for trying to hustle someone at billiards," he confessed with a grin. "Well, Clyde couldn't have me around, endangering his reputation, -could he?-so he told me that he was going to pay my way through any college I wanted to attend- after he sent me on a grand tour of Europe for the summer."
"Which explains how you got to London," Remington realized.
"I felt more at home there than I ever had here in California," Daniel told them. "And I discovered that I could fool most people into believing that *I* was as English as they were. I'd already been earning my keep during those four years picking pockets, running cons- it was so easy to make the jump into the bigger leagues. Clyde was furious when I told him that I wasn't going to college, but that I planned to stay in London, practically disowned me. I managed to make a good living, for the most part, made friends, a place for myself- and I left plain old Harold Davenport from Los Angeles, California far behind in the process."
"How did you happen to steal the Monet from Valmont?"
"That was fate, I'm afraid. Or luck."
"Good or bad?" Mildred asked.
"Depends on how one looks at it, I suppose," Daniel told them. "I had done some small jobs for Archie Valmont-" Remington frowned in disapproval at the idea of what those "jobs" had possibly entailed, and Daniel must have seen it. "Back then, I didn't care very much what I did- as long as it kept a roof over my head and paid the tailor," he admitted. "I'm not proud of it, but it was a dark period in my life that's best left unopened," he told them. "I happened to be there when Valmont welcomed a business associate of his from America- a lawyer who was seeking to handle some of Valmont's legal work in the States."
"Clyde."
"Yes. Luckily for us, Effie was still at their hotel, and didn't see me- or she would have blown the entire thing out of the water. Valmont introduced me as Daniel Chalmers, and Clyde never said a word, never let on that we knew each other at all. He was waiting for me when I left Valmont's house that day and we talked- he still disapproved of what I was doing- but considering that he was handling legal matters for bigger fish than I, he couldn't disapprove TOO much, could he? After that, I made myself scarce, told Valmont that I was going to Cannes on another job. But a few days later, Clyde tracked me down. He told me about the Monet, about how much Effie wanted it- and that he'd offered Valmont an obscene amount of money for it, only to be turned down."
"Whose idea was it to steal it?" Remington asked.
"I was joking, said something about stealing it for him to give to Effie, and he agreed. Even agreed to the price I asked for doing it. You know the rest of the story. I stole the painting, brought it here, and had a copy made. Then about- ten years ago, I sent Clyde the original Monet, disguised as the Renoir. He called me in London, we talked- and I felt closer to him than I had in years." His smile faded as he sat down. "It was the last time we spoke to each other. I didn't even know he had died until I saw the article in the Los Angeles newspaper."
"At least you made your peace, Daniel," Remington reminded him. "That should mean something."
"I suppose so," Daniel agreed.
"You know, until Valmont cools off, it won't be safe for you in London," Remington pointed out, looking into his teacup.
"I suppose you're right. I'll have to lay low for awhile. Keep a low profile."
Laura looked at Remington. "And I think I know JUST the place for him," she said. "Remote, quiet. Out of the way. And a built-in alias, just waiting for him to use."
Remington looked at her, and then smiled. "You know, Laura, that's an excellent idea."
Daniel frowned, then began to shake his head slowly. "Oh, no. No, no, no. You can't seriously ask me to- Harry- Laura. I thought we'd achieved some small measure of friendship during this crisis, my dear. That you would even consider such a move-"
"She did ask you to come for a visit," Remington reminded his friend.
"I know, but-"
Laura picked up the telephone, and dialed a number. "Fred, it's Miss Holt. Would you meet us downstairs, please?…Thank you." She smiled sweetly as she rose from the sofa, her movements mirrored by Remington's as they each took one of Daniel's arms.
"I beg of you, Laura, Harry. Don't do this," Daniel pleaded as they escorted him from the office. He turned to look at Mildred. "Mildred- are you just going to stand there and let them kidnap me? Turn me over to that-"
"Now, Daniel," Laura admonished. "She IS your sister in law."
"And I'm sure that Clyde would approve," Remington added as the doors closed behind them.
Mildred's titter became a full blown laugh that followed them to the elevator. When Remington released Daniel's arm for a second to press the button, Daniel tried to escape, but Laura had the answer. She brought her heel down sharply on Daniel's foot. "Ow!" Daniel cried out in pain.
Remington looked at Laura. "Excellent solution, Miss Holt," he told her. He knew from painful experience how much pain Laura's heel could inflict.
"Thank you, Mr. Steele. I've had plenty of practice. Now are you coming along quietly, Daniel? Or do I have to get really rough?"
"Really, Harry," Daniel sighed, but he seemed resigned to his fate as he hopped on one foot. "Has Linda had these violent tendencies for very long?"