Эд Макбейн - The April Robin Murders

“Everything all right, Bingo?” Handsome asked anxiously.

“It’s dark here,” Bingo said. He unlocked the door and flung it open bravely. Then he opened the door that led into the main room.

Seen now in the semidarkness, it seemed to be twice as large as it had by daylight. Large and cavernous. He remembered a newsreel he’d seen of Mammoth Cave, only it had been better lighted. He had a curious feeling that any minute now, a horde of bats would come zooming out of nowhere.

“There’s a light switch here some place,” Handsome said. A moment later the two floor lamps near the davenports created a little island of furniture and light in what was still an abyss of shadows. Another switch clicked, and a half dozen wall brackets, designed to imitate candles in antique holders, added their yellowish glow. They only served to make the small furnished island in front of the fireplace seem more isolated and small.

Bingo glanced up to where, seemingly a vast distance above them, a wrought-iron chandelier held more imitation candles, a lot of them. “I wonder what turns that on.”

Apparently nothing did. Handsome tried every switch in sight, unsuccessfully. “Maybe it’s out of bulbs,” he said helpfully.

“Probably,” Bingo said. He wondered how anyone would ever replace the bulbs in that chandelier without borrowing a ladder from the fire department. “Turn off those side things, we don’t need them.” And they dispelled the one spot of homelike coziness the room had.

“We won’t unpack,” Bingo said, as they deposited the last suitcase inside the door. “We’ll wait till after we go out and eat.” He paused and then said, “I wonder if that caretaker is around. Because right now would be a good time to tell her to go.” One thing was certain, he didn’t want to come back, later when it was really dark, and find that baleful, malicious face glaring at him. Especially, he didn’t want to sleep under the same roof with it.

They stood for a minute, listening. There wasn’t a sound in the big house, anywhere. In the vast cavern of the living room, the little island of furniture and floor lamps seemed very small and defenseless. Suddenly Bingo felt an impulse to throw their belongings back in the car, return to the Skylight Motel and, in the morning, look up Mr. Courtney Budlong and tell him the deal was off. Even if they couldn’t get their down payment back! For one moment the impulse even included going back to New York, not tomorrow morning, but right away.

“I’ll go look for her, Bingo,” Handsome offered.

Bingo shook his head and squared his shoulders. “We’ll both go.”

They found their way to the caretaker’s room, turning on lights all the way. Bingo knocked on the door, lightly at first, and then louder. There was no answer. He reminded himself sternly that they owned the house now, and pushed open the door. The room was empty.

“She must have gone somewhere,” Bingo said, hoping the relief didn’t show in his voice. “So we’ll leave a note for her.”

He ripped a leaf from his address book, considered the matter for a moment, and then wrote:

We have bought this house and moved in. We will not need you any more. Please leave tonight.

There, that settled that. A load had been lifted from his mind. All at once the whole house seemed better and brighter. And to think that he’d been considering — even very briefly — giving up this wonderful deal! He must have been out of his mind!

“We’ll leave the lights on,” he told Handsome. “It’ll be really dark by the time we get back.”

“It’s really dark now,” Handsome said. “It gets dark out here right away when the sun goes down. Bingo, this Mr. Lattimer—”

Bingo slammed the car door shut and said, “Let’s find a place to eat, first. And then talk.”

He thought about all the restaurants described in the “Where to Go” section of the guidebook, especially those marked with (*), which translated into “a favorite with the stars.” They could afford to go to any one of them. And perhaps they owed it to themselves, as the new owners of the April Robin mansion.

But that would mean going back into the house, opening suitcases, changing clothes. Suddenly he felt entirely too tired. Tired, and still strangely unsettled. Tomorrow night would be time enough. He finally said, “Let’s find a hamburger stand.”

Handsome found several that were only slightly less ornate than the Chinese Theatre. They passed those up in favor of one on Wilshire Boulevard, a pleasant circular affair. Bingo relaxed, settled down, and felt at home at last.

“All right,” he said. “You told me this Mr. Lattimer was murdered, but he wasn’t dead.”

“He hasn’t been murdered long enough,” Handsome said. “So he isn’t legally dead, I mean.” He added, “You don’t need to worry about the house, Bingo, because he wasn’t murdered there so far as anyone knows. Account of, the police kept going over and going over and going over the house trying to find out about his being murdered and trying to find where the money was.”

Bingo sighed. “Start from the beginning.” He took a bite of his hamburger and decided it tasted wonderful.

“I don’t know a lot. Because the eastern papers didn’t carry much,” Handsome said apologetically, seeming to apologize as much for the eastern papers as for himself.

His name had been Julien Lattimer, and although he appeared to be only in his early fifties, he was a retired businessman. And with a lot of money. He’d been married five times, his fifth and final wife being named Lois.

“The News ran a picture of his five wives,” Handsome said. “Not very good pictures, though. Three of them died, and the fourth one got a divorce, and the police — and I guess everybody — think the fifth one murdered him, except nobody ever could find his body, or the money.”

“Looks like he was good at making money, but no good at picking women,” Bingo said. “But not everybody knows how.”

Three years before, the Lattimers had bought the mansion at 113 Damascus Drive, and as far as anyone knew, lived there happily. But according to theory, Lois, who was younger, and tending toward the glamorous in looks, had married him for his money. He had been, according to the stories, just a bit crotchety and hard to get along with. While she had been friendly. A little too friendly, especially with a handsome young would-be actor whose name had never come into the story, and who had remained throughout as an unsubstantiated rumor but still a possible motive.

Then one day early in 1953 — Handsome hadn’t seen that story and wasn’t too sure of the date — Julien Lattimer’s ex-wife Adelle had turned up and asked the police to find either Julien Lattimer or his body, and she suspected it would be the latter. He’d skipped three months of alimony payments, so, after vain attempts to reach him by telephone, she’d gone ringing his doorbell. She was met by Lois, the current Mrs. Lattimer, who told a story about his having gone away on a business trip. That had been two months before and, inquiring in the various places Julien Lattimer usually frequented, Lois could find no one who had seen him or heard from him.

Adelle produced a will, made, she said, at the time of the divorce settlement, leaving her one quarter of everything he had in the world. She was dead-set that he’d been murdered, probably buried in the cellar, and she demanded that the police find his body, and immediately.

Bingo gulped his coffee and said, “The cellar of our house?”

“The cellar of our house,” Handsome said, nodding. “Only they never found any body. Not in the house or anywhere else. And nobody would’ve asked any more questions, except for some funny things. This Lois wife told a bunch of mixed-up things. Like, the night after which she never saw him again, he’d gone to the drugstore to get her some cigarettes. Now wouldn’t you think, Bingo, very rich people in a big house like that, wouldn’t run out of cigarettes?”