The April Robin Murders

Twelve

“Handsome,” Bingo said sternly, “we bought a house. We practically bought a house. It had a caretaker and the caretaker got killed. It isn’t any of our business.”

“Okay, Bingo,” Handsome said unhappily, “if you say so. Only, it reads here like she didn’t have any folks anywhere, and she should be buried nicely, and besides, nobody seems to care who murdered her, except maybe us.”

Bingo waved his newspaper at Handsome and said, “The police are working on the case.”

Handsome said nothing. He just looked worried and miserable.

“All right,” Bingo said at last. “We’ll go home and call up—” He paused. “That Hendenfelder, not Perroni. Maybe they’ve found out some more about her by now.” He jammed his cigarette viciously in his saucer and said as reassuringly as he could, “If there’s anything to find out, we’ll find it.”

He added, out in the car, “And if we spot any likely places to take pictures—”

“We’ll stop,” Handsome said.

“Just a question of finding the right place at the right time,” Bingo said with false cheerfulness. A matter that was going to involve a little more careful study of the Visitor’s Guide. He yawned. The day was half gone. They had a roof over their heads and it was a roof that could stand a little exploring. He puzzled over that thought for a moment. The house itself could stand a little exploring. It wasn’t just a matter of finding a hint as to where Julien Lattimer’s body was hidden, assuming that he had become a body. Nor of finding a little souvenir of April Robin to please Hendenfelder. It had suddenly become a matter of finding out just what had happened to Pearl Durzy, and why.

“Bingo,” Handsome said, “there’s a bunch of people in front of our house.” He slowed down the convertible.

Bingo looked. There were a few cars parked along the street, and a few dozen people arranged at the edge of the driveway. One curious observer had ventured a little way up the driveway toward the house itself.

“If one more thing has gone wrong,” Bingo said, “we’re going right back to New York.”

“It’s the newspapers,” Handsome said, as though he were personally apologizing for them. “Account of Miss Durzy — Mrs. Durzy — either dying or getting killed here and it being the house from which Mr. and Mrs. Lattimer disappeared. It gives the address of the house in the story and there’s one picture of the house, only not a very good one. I remember when a Mr. Clement Hathaway, who was a society man and rich, hanged himself from a tree in Central Park, for no reason anybody ever knew, and for weeks afterward people were coming to look at the tree and cut off little pieces of it for souvenirs.” He added, “I don’t know why people act that way, only they do.”

“I don’t even care why they act, that way,” Bingo said happily. “I’m just glad that they do.” The word “souvenirs” had not only rung a bell in his mind, but set a whole series of them ringing.

“Pull up in the driveway,” he told Handsome. “After all, we almost own the place. But don’t run over anybody that might be a customer.”

The shining maroon convertible seemed to belong where it was going, and the curiosity seekers stepped back almost respectfully.

“This time,” Bingo said, “you take the camera!” He slid out of the car, pulled the quick give-away cards from his pocket, and smiled his most engaging smile.

“What a souvenir!” he said. “What an item for your memory book! A picture of you taken at the scene of at least one crime!” He waved majestically toward the mansion. “Come right on up the driveway, don’t hang back!” He beamed at a pair of embarrassed but happy matrons.

“An action picture of you,” he told them. “Go on, walk right up to the door and put your hand on the knob! That’s the ticket! What you’ll receive from us is practically a newsreel shot—”

The pair of matrons obliged, for three poses. “Just put your name and address on this card,” Bingo told them. “It’ll be twenty-five cents for each print, mailed to you within twenty-four hours!”

They decided, after a whispered conference, that they each wanted three prints of each pose. And this, Bingo reminded himself, was the day that had started off badly!

A middle-aged man with thin lips and eyes that seemed to have just come from an ice-cube tray, stepped up and said, “Now wait a minute! I don’t know these ladies, but I believe in helping my fellow man or woman, and how do they know they’re ever going to get those pictures they already paid for?”

Bingo said suavely, “If you’ll kindly look at the business address printed on each card—”

It was not just the Beverly Hills address, but the firm name, International Foto, Motion Picture and Television Corporation of America, which seemed to do the trick. The man with the iceberg eyes retreated a little.

A plump woman in a gaudy slack suit pushed a gangling teenager forward and said, “Go on; Harvey, right up by the doorway. This’ll be a nice picture to send your father.”

“Right on the very spot!” Bingo said. “Right in front of the mystery mansion!”

A couple who looked like vacationers moved forward, the man muttering under his breath, “This seems silly to me, Helen, but if you insist upon it—”

Bingo turned to Handsome and said, “Get a really good picture of these two honeymooners!” He flashed a smile at the man and said, “Turn your head a little — so! Get your profile just right!” He waited till he knew Handsome was through, and then said to the man, “Haven’t I seen you on the screen?”

The man coughed, said, “Guess not. I’m in the wholesale hardware business, back in Bloomington, Illinois.” He coughed again, this time with even more embarrassment, and said, “And this isn’t exactly a honeymoon. Helen and me, we were married twenty-six years ago next May 10th.”

Helen bridled a little and said, “And it seems like yesterday!”

“Believe me,” Bingo said, “you look as though it has been only yesterday! Let’s get one more picture of you, gazing into each other’s eyes!”

A dozen customers later, Bingo began looking for a place to put the quarters. He solved it by slinging the camera case over his shoulder.

“You may never have an opportunity like this again—”

The cold-eyed man returned and said, “Look-a-here, boys, I don’t want to seem unpleasant. But isn’t this trespassing or something? These here people don’t have a right to be here, and you don’t have a right to be taking pictures—”

“Mister,” Bingo said, “I have a paper in my pocket giving us the right to occupy and use this property. Anyone here now I consider my guest.” He suddenly remembered that the paper was in the hands of a police handwriting expert at the moment. He said quickly, “If you’d like to step inside and use our telephone and call Mr. Victor Budlong, of Budlong and Dollinger” — he rolled out the syllables mellifluously — “he’ll put you right.”

“There’s been a murder here,” the man said. “Maybe the cops won’t like—”

“My good friend,” Bingo said, “use that same telephone and call Detective Hendenfelder.”

The heckler muttered something Bingo didn’t catch, and drifted away, not — Bingo noticed with a few thanks to his lucky stars — in the direction of the telephone.

Then there was someone who asked, breathlessly, “Does anyone have any idea where that Mrs. Lattimer buried poor Mr. Lattimer?”

Bingo gestured and said, “There’s a lot of lawn and garden, ma’am. If you’d like to borrow a shovel—”

And someone else who asked, “Which is the window of the room where the last murder was committed, and could I get a picture—?”

Inevitably, the cars parked along Damascus Drive attracted other cars, and the curious people moving up the driveway drew others to follow them. A small boy pushing a bike shoved up close to Bingo and whispered that for five bucks, cash on the line, he could really mess up traffic on Sunset Boulevard and divert it up Damascus Drive. Bingo gave him two, wished him luck, and hoped Handsome wouldn’t run out of film.

The afternoon wore on, little by little the crowd drifted away until there was no one left but the cold-eyed heckler.

“You boys have a nice racket here,” he commented. “Sorry I don’t want a picture taken,”

“You’re in the Industry?” Bingo asked. He’d learned to use the sonorous and almost reverential tone he’d heard earlier in the day from Victor Budlong.

“Well, in a way, yes, and in a way, no,” the man said. He seemed to be thawing a little. “I train birds.” The startled looks on the faces of Bingo and Handsome were obviously nothing new to him. “I also rent out reptiles. Snakes, turtles, horned toads. Any time a studio needs to rent a reptile, they call on me.”

You never could tell when you might need a friend, Bingo reminded himself. Or when you might want to rent a rattlesnake. “Let’s get a good picture of you, right here in the entrance. No charge. A gift from us.”

“No, thanks,” the man said. “I don’t need any pictures of me. And I don’t want one taken of me right here.” He glanced up at the house. “Especially not here.” He seemed to be saying it to himself.

Bingo looked at him closely. No, he didn’t fit any of the descriptions of Julien Lattimer. He was too tall, too sharp-faced, his hair was somewhere between blond and gray.

“I would like to look around a little, though,” the man said. He came close to smiling. “My name is William Willis.”

“And you train birds,” Bingo said, “and rent reptiles. We’re Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak, and we take pictures. And we’d enjoy having you look around some other time. But right now my partner and I need to print up a batch of pictures.”

William Willis moved his thin lips into another smile and said, “I’ll come back.”

They watched him march down the driveway, and Bingo said, “I’ve felt warmer weather in January.”

“If he’d said his name was William Willis in the first place,” Handsome said, “I’d’ve remembered him right away. He does a night-club act with his trained birds. Not the snakes, just the birds. There was a story about him in the Journal, because of his having had his birds in a New York night club for a record-breaking run. Two and a half months. There was a picture of the birds, right next to a picture of Christine Jorgensen coming home from Europe. She had on a mink coat.”

Bingo sorted that out carefully in his mind and said, “Maybe if he’d had his birds along, he’d’ve had a picture taken. And let’s get to work and—” He remembered suddenly. “And call up Hendenfelder. To ask about Pearl Durzy.”

A cheerful voice called, “Yoo-hoo!” from the far side of the garden wall. It was Mrs. Waldo Hibbing, waving at them cordially. Bingo walked over to the wall, wondering how long she’d been watching.

“Well!” she said. “Gracious! For newcomers, you two boys certainly have a lot of visitors!”

“We were taking pictures,” Bingo said. From where she’d been, she couldn’t have seen money and cards changing hands. “We collect faces. Interesting faces. And while we’re getting established here, we’re collecting as many faces as we can.” It sounded lame even to him, but it was the best he could do in a hurry. He handed her one of their business cards and said, “We found our office space today. Lovely little building in Beverly Hills.”

She looked at the card and said, “My!” Then she flashed a toothy smile at him. “Maybe you could get me taken on a studio tour sometime! I’ve wanted to go on one ever since I came to Hollywood!”

“Gladly,” Bingo said, wondering just how it could be done. That, and TV show tickets for the man in the Hawaiian shirt. “Of course, right now we’re pretty rushed—”

“I can see you are!” she said. “And heavens! I saw the papers this morning! Imagine a thing like that happening right after you moved in here!”

Bingo agreed with her that it was a terrible thing. He added, “Did you know this Pearl Durzy at all?”

“Goodness no,” the widow said. “I scarcely ever saw her, in the whole two years I’ve lived here. She just never went out of that house. She had her groceries delivered and everything. It was like she haunted it, I mean.” She paused suddenly, her eyes widening. “Now that’s funny! I guess the only time I did see her leave the house was last night!” She added, “Before she was murdered, of course.”

Bingo started to say, “Naturally,” decided that would sound a little silly, and said, as casually as he could, “About what time?”

“Well,” she said, “well, I don’t know the absolute exact hour. But it was a while before you got here. Before you moved in. I just happened to be looking out the window and I just happened to see her.”

Mrs. Waldo Hibbing, Bingo decided, would probably be happening to look out the window whenever anything interesting happened in the neighborhood. “You didn’t see what time she came back?” he asked, still keeping it very casual.

She shook her head regretfully. “I went out to a movie,” she said. “I don’t, very often, but last night I did, and I didn’t get back until, mercy! almost midnight. But I did see her go, and she looked just like a poor little ghost, and small wonder, cooped up in that house all these years!” She turned her eyes to the house. “It must be wonderful inside, though!”

Bingo didn’t rise to that one. He said, “My partner and me would love to have you come visit us. Soon as we get the furniture in.”

“Oh,” she said, “I wouldn’t mind there not being furniture.”

“We would,” Bingo said politely. “We’d like you to see it at its best.” He changed the subject back. “Imagine you seeing that poor Pearl Durzy last night!”

“And almost the only time she’d ever left the house!” the widow Hibbing said. She glanced over Bingo’s shoulder and said, “Heavens! You have more company coming!” Bingo turned, looked, and recognized the car even before he saw Perroni getting out. “Important business,” he said, and headed back to the April Robin mansion.

Handsome was ushering the two police officers into the cavernous living room, which suddenly seemed darker and more dismal than it had ever been. He thought suddenly of Pearl Durzy, living alone here, never leaving the house. Not a newspaper delivered daily, no radio to listen to, no television to watch. What had she done with herself all those years?

At the moment, Perroni didn’t seem to have Pearl Durzy on his mind. He looked at Bingo as though he had been somehow offended.

“It checks,” Perroni said sourly. “Yes, it checks. Clark Sellers says it’s Julien Lattimer’s signature. And when he says somebody’s signature is somebody’s signature, it’s that person’s signature.” He glared at Bingo and Handsome as though daring them to dispute him.

Bingo felt his spine stiffen. “And who is this Clark Sellers?”

Perroni and Hendenfelder looked at him as though he’d asked who George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were.

“Look here,” Hendenfelder said gently. “You think of doctors. Who do you think of?”

“Mayo brothers,” Bingo said promptly.

“You think of the South Pole, who do you think of?”

Bingo said, “Penguins,” and Handsome said, “Admiral Byrd, but mostly also Roald Amundsen, he reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911. And the next year—”

Hendenfelder said, “You think of electricity, you think of Benjamin Franklin. You think of wireless, you think of Marconi.” He smiled at them amiably. “And when you think of handwriting—”

“You think of Clark Sellers,” Bingo said. “Okay, if he says this is Julien Lattimer’s writing, this is Julien Lattimer’s writing.”

Perroni said, “Now, where’s Julien Lattimer?”

“I don’t know,” Bingo said. In his heart he felt that if he did know, he wouldn’t tell.

Handsome said placatingly, “Mr. Courtney Budlong must know where he is, if he got those papers signed.”

“This,” Perroni said coldly, “is final. There is no Courtney Budlong and never was a Courtney Budlong.”

Hendenfelder said mildly, “Once we find the man who called himself Courtney Budlong—”

“That will be the day,” Perroni said. “The day to remember. If we do.” He glowered at Bingo and Handsome as though they were personally responsible for all the troubles he’d had in his life, including corns, stomach ulcers and income tax. “Meantime, Mr. Reddy says you can stay on. Until further notice. And I’m going to have another look around the house.”

He stalked off toward the staircase. Hendenfelder sat down on one of the two sofas and said, “Y’know, a guy’s feet get tired even driving a car.” He shook his head sadly. “This really breaks Perroni all up. The handwriting expert, I mean.”

Bingo said, “Maybe he signed those things a long time ago. Before he was murdered.” It was a flimsy idea, but the best he had at the time.

“Uh-uh,” Hendenfelder said. “According to Clark Sellers’ office, those signatures were written with a liquid graphite pencil. And that pencil didn’t come on the market until sometime in 1955.” He sighed. “This is really rough on Perroni.”

“It’s rough on a lot of people,” Bingo said, “including various people who seem to have gotten murdered.” He drew a long breath. “In fact, we were going to call you up to ask a couple of questions.”

From overhead he could hear Perroni’s footsteps, slow, measured and patient.

“About Pearl Durzy,” Bingo went on recklessly. “There’s a lot about her we don’t seem to know.”

“Brother!” Hendenfelder said. “There’s a lot about her nobody seems to know.”

“You mean,” Handsome asked, “like who murdered her?”

“Not only that,” Hendenfelder said. “But mostly — who was she?”