Эд Макбейн - The April Robin Murders

“It looks sort of haunted,” Handsome said. He laughed, a strained little laugh. “Maybe April Robin haunts it.”

“We don’t know whatever happened to April Robin,” Bingo reminded him, keeping his voice steady somehow. He pushed open the front door and said, “It’s haunted by somebody, anyway.”

There was a girl stretched out on one of the davenports, reading a movie fan magazine. From the door they could see very brief lime-green shorts, halter and matching sandals, a lot of very white skin and a heavy mass of copper-red hair. She sat up as they came in, put down the magazine, and smiled.

There were a great many things to say, Bingo reflected, and none of them really seemed to fit the occasion. He stood by the doorway, deciding between “How did you get in?” “What are you doing here?” and “Who are you?”

Handsome said, “Well, hello again!”

The smile widened. Bingo noted dimples, attractive ones. “Oh, you did see me this morning.”

“Sure,” Handsome said easily. “And you ought to have more clothes on now. It gets colder than you’d expect after the sun goes down out here.”

“I have a coat,” she said, gesturing.

A mink, of a pale bluish gray, had been thrown over the arm of the sofa.

“After all,” she said, “if I’m going to ask you gentlemen for a job posing, or acting, you need to see my figure, don’t you?”

“It’s a nice figure,” Handsome said judiciously. “But you’ll have to watch your weight. People with that color eyes and hair tend to put on weight. They freckle, too.”

At least, Bingo said, he hadn’t told her she ought to wear glasses. He sat down on the other davenport before his knees gave way completely, lit a cigarette, and tried to look as though this sort of thing happened every day of his life.

“This morning was an accident,” she said. “I’d been posing for some pictures up in the model bureau, and I got tired. It was a late, late night last night. So I slipped down the back stairs and was just catching a quick nap in the vacant offices. I didn’t know anybody was going to come in, honest.”

Bingo found himself smiling back at her, and repressed it quickly. “But tonight—”

She shrugged her shoulders. Lovely shoulders, Bingo observed. “I knew you were just out here from the East, and you probably hadn’t seen any faces yet. And this seemed a good way to bring myself to your attention.” She added, “I’m a very ambitious girl.”

“I can see that,” Bingo said. “And just how did you get into what are now going to be our offices?”

“Oh that,” she said, as though it weren’t in the least important. “I used to use that empty office a lot. I’d snitched a key. From Pa.” She took a slim platinum cigarette case from a pocket of the mink. “I forgot. You don’t know who I am—”

Before Bingo could say, “You must be Janesse Budlong,” Handsome said, “We recognized you from your picture.” He paused. “It isn’t a very good picture, though.”

“I’ll say it isn’t,” she told him. “I hope you can take a better one.”

“I hope so too,” Handsome said earnestly.

“Look here,” Bingo said. “Why?” He felt a little helpless. “You don’t need to—” He gestured feebly. “What I mean is, a girl like you shouldn’t have to be an actress or a model or anything.” He gestured again, toward the platinum cigarette case and the mink. “It’s like this. You’ve already got all these things.”

“I told you I was ambitious,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “Just because Pa’s rich doesn’t mean I can’t be ambitious. I photograph well, and I can act, too. I guess I’ve been to about every dramatic school there is out here. Only nobody wants to give me a chance. Everybody figures, if a girl has a rich Pa, she can’t act.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you could,” Bingo said mildly.

“Pa told me about you boys,” she said. “About you renting the office, and about your big picture and television company, and about you buying the April Robin house.” She sighed. “Golly, she must have been wonderful! And to think of you living here!” She said it with a kind of awe.

“She was indeed,” Bingo said. He found himself liking this girl. He likewise found himself wondering if Pa had told her the little complication involved in their purchase of the April Robin mansion. No, most likely not.

“Pa said he told you about me, and he’d arrange for us to meet,” she told them, “only I guess I got a little impatient, and so here I am.” She smiled again, this time appealingly. “I didn’t tell Pa, but he won’t mind. He’s very ambitious for me, too.”

“He is indeed,” Bingo said. “And it was very nice of you to drop in.” He thought fast. “And your father is going to have the surprise of his life.”

Victor Budlong had been very helpful to them. There was a better than average chance that he was going to be needed for more help in the future, while the actual ownership of the April Robin mansion remained undecided. “We’re going to take a few test pictures of you right now.” She had not, it seemed, come unprepared. While Handsome got out lights and a camera, she pulled a tiny suitcase from behind the davenport, a suitcase that contained an amazing amount of wardrobe.

Handsome took pictures in the shorts and halter, in the mink, in a ginghamish little housedress, and finally, in a demure navy blue sheath with a tiny white collar.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully, as she emerged from the improvised dressing room wearing the latter, “I bet I look a little like April Robin looked! And here I am, having my picture taken in what used to be her house!”

Watching her pose, Bingo had a sudden feeling that she might be right. She might put on weight, as Handsome had predicted, but she didn’t have it now. And she was small, with tiny, beautiful hands and feet. Wearing the demure navy blue dress, she could indeed be imagined as April Robin had looked.

“Whatever did happen to her?” she said at last, the pictures over, and the wardrobe back in its case.

“I don’t know,” Bingo said. “Nobody seems to know.” He paused. “Why not ask your father?”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t know. In fact, he didn’t even know this had been her house, until this morning.”

A sudden thought struck Bingo. “Look here,” he said sternly. “Look here, Miss Budlong.”

“Please call me Janesse,” she begged prettily.

“All right. Look here, Janesse. You said you snitched a key from your father to get into our offices. Before they were our offices, I mean. Only,” he said, and very sternly now, “you didn’t snitch a key to get into this house from your father, because he didn’t have one, because his company didn’t handle this house.”

There was a rather dreadful silence.

“The door—” she began weakly.

“The door was not unlocked,” Bingo said, scowling at her. “I locked it myself.”

This time there was a longer silence.

“Well?” Bingo demanded.

“Oh, all right,” she said. There was an almost sullen note in her voice. “I snitched a key from somebody else. He doesn’t know it, because I snitched it and had a copy made and put his back again.”

“Why?” Bingo asked.

“Honest,” she said, “it was only because I was curious to see the inside of the house.”

“Because of April Robin?” Bingo asked.

“No. I didn’t know about April Robin having built the house until today, either. It was because of the Lattimers. The murder and everything. I read about it, and I was curious.”

Handsome had paused in the middle of putting away his equipment. Bingo said, trying to hide his interest, “Did you ever find anything interesting here?”