Эд Макбейн - The April Robin Murders

Bingo mentally measured the size of the little nearly Colonial building as a background for the name International Foto, Motion Picture and Television Corporation of America, and decided that they would not need just an artist, but a genius. Possibly an engineering genius. But that was a detail to be worked out in its own time.

“Oh yes,” Victor Budlong said, as though he’d just remembered. “My daughter’s picture!” He pulled an oversize glossy print from his desk drawer and handed it to Bingo.

“Janesse is a talented girl,” he said, spelling out the name, and adding, “Numerology. Her mother’s idea, not mine. Could be changed, of course. Real talent. Not just a father’s prejudice, either.” Proudly.

Janesse Budlong’s black and white picture showed a delicate and almost lovely face, perhaps a little too thin, slightly parted lips curving in a delicious smile, large and incredibly soulful eyes, and a lot of glossy hair which tumbled over her shoulders, one of them invitingly bare.

“I can see she’s talented,” Bingo said admiringly. “And beautiful.” He meant that, too.

Handsome looked at the picture thoughtfully and critically. He said at last, “It’s hard to tell much from pictures. Even if you take pictures yourself, I mean. You have to see a person in person.”

“Exactly,” Bingo said, quickly taking the picture from Handsome and returning it. “We’d certainly like to meet the young lady, when we get settled and going.”

Victor Budlong looked pleased almost to the purring point, and said, “Well! I’m sure that can be arranged!”

Herbert Reddy from the trust company arrived at that moment, with Perroni a few steps behind him. He was a short, chubby, breathless little man, baldheaded and with a round, pink, bewildered face, who looked as though he might bounce like a rubber ball. He wasn’t bouncing now, though. He looked at Bingo, at Handsome, at Victor Budlong, at the papers in his hand, and finally said, “This is very confusing.”

“There’s nothing confusing about it,” Perroni said sourly. “These guys got took, that’s all.”

“But look—” little Herbert Reddy began anxiously.

Perroni waved him aside. “I been on the phone. Bunco squad has a make on this artist. Description fits. Small-time artist, works mostly on widows. Usually oil stocks. Uses the name Chester Baxter.”

“Courtney Budlong,” Bingo said, trying to sound firm. He began thinking of the initialed cuff links and tie pin.

“Same fella,” Perroni said. “It checks.”

Bingo found himself about to say, “Courtney Budlong,” again. Instead he said, wildly and unthinkingly, “The furniture.”

“What furniture?” Perroni said.

Bingo heard himself talking about the furniture that was in storage and that was to be delivered immediately, the antiques, all beautiful stuff, the paintings, the boxes of linen and silver. He heard his voice fading away.

“There isn’t any furniture,” Perroni said scornfully. “Lattimer’s widow sold every stick of it except those pieces of junk in the living room and the housekeeper’s room. When she found out we were on to her and the whole deal, and might find his body any day, she sold everything she could lay her hands on before she beat it. Isn’t that right?”

“That’s right,” Hendenfelder said. He looked sympathetic about it.

“There isn’t any Courtney Budlong,” Perroni said. “There never was any Courtney Budlong any more than there was any furniture. You got took, that’s all.” He seemed to be glad of it.

Victor Budlong, the genuine Budlong, took a hand. He said smoothly, “Coming from New York, where everyone rents, naturally you wouldn’t know the complications of real estate transactions.” He gave a brief and bewildering lecture about contracts, escrow, payments, first and second mortgages, title search and other details.

“Maybe,” Bingo said, “we’d better go back to the big city, where a guy is safe!”

“This is all very interesting,” Herbert Reddy said stiffly, in a high-pitched, almost squeaky voice. “But you’re overlooking the important feature. Mr. Julien Lattimer’s signature.”

“Mr. Julien Lattimer,” Perroni stated flatly, “was murdered by his wife nearly five years ago.”

“Mr. Julien Lattimer’s signature,” Herbert Reddy said, “is on both those papers. Or maybe you think they were signed by his ghost?”

“All right,” Perroni said. “All right! I admit the signatures look alike.”

“I’m not a professional handwriting expert,” Mr. Reddy said, “but I say they’re written by the same hand.”

Everybody, including Victor Budlong’s middle-aged and dignified secretary, had looked curiously at the signatures on the papers Bingo had been given, and at the undisputed Julien Lattimer signatures Mr. Reddy had brought with him for comparison purposes. Everyone had agreed that yes, they did look very much alike. Including Perroni.

“I guess I looked at his signature enough times to remember it,” Perroni said, looking as though the sorrows of the universe had accumulated on his narrow shoulders. “When the question arose of whether or not his widow might’ve forged his name to some checks before she took off, which it turned out she had done, and not too skillfully, either.”

“Skillful enough to fool a few people,” Mr. Reddy said coldly.

Hendenfelder threw everything into renewed confusion by suggesting that Mrs. Lattimer, whether wife or widow, had forged these particular signatures.

“These,” Mr. Reddy said, “are not forged.”

Victor Budlong helpfully pointed out that obviously it was time to refer the signatures in question to a handwriting expert. Los Angeles, he reminded them, had the best handwriting expert in the world.

“Me’n’ Hendenfelder’ll take these downtown to him,” Perroni said. “That way there won’t be no argument anywhere.”

Mr. Reddy announced in a determined voice that he was going right along as trustee for Mr. Lattimer’s estate, somehow managing to convey by his tone of voice that Mr. Lattimer was not only alive but probably in the best of health. “In the meantime,” he said, “the house—”

Everybody looked at everybody else a little helplessly.

“And the keys to the house—” he went on.

Everybody looked at Bingo.

“Mr. Budlong gave them to me,” Bingo said, in what he was afraid was a very weak voice. He took them out of his pocket. “I mean, Mr. Courtney Budlong.” He could feel his voice growing weaker. The keys still warmed his hand, though. If necessary, he’d fight anyone in the room, maybe in all Beverly Hills, for their possession.

“Mr. Courtney Budlong,” Perroni said, and snorted rudely.

“The man who called himself Courtney Budlong,” Bingo said. His fingers tightened on the keys.

“But where did he get them?” Hendenfelder asked suddenly.

This time everybody looked at Mr. Reddy. Mr. Reddy, in his turn, looked at the keys in Bingo’s hand and said unhappily, “I don’t know. He must have gotten them from someone.”

“From, for example, who?” Perroni asked.

Mr. Reddy spread his hands helplessly. “There were a few sets. I have one. The trust company had it made. Mr. Lattimer and Mrs. Lattimer had keys. And the caretaker. This Pearl Durzy.” His face lighted up. “They could have been gotten from her!”

Bingo thought of the look Pearl Durzy had given their Mr. Courtney Budlong. He thought of the fact that she’d had nothing in her possession except a few bus tokens. He decided to keep his mouth shut, slipped the keys unobtrusively into his pocket, and hoped someone would change the subject right away.