"Don't you ever take a day off?" Barbara asked her.
Melinda smiled wanly. "I prefer to keep busy. But what are you doing here on such a beautiful Sunday afternoon?"
"I was looking for one of the cameramen. They all seem to be out, though." Barbara sank into a chair beside the older girl's desk. "Melinda," she said impulsively, "you knew Lance Shelby pretty well, didn't you? Would you have any idea of what he was working on just before-"
Melinda swayed, gripping her typewriter with both hands. Every drop of color had drained out of her face, and her entire concentration was riveted on a spot ten feet away.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Barbara cried. Following Melinda's stupefied gaze, she, too, was impelled to turn.
A tall, dark, and very handsome man stood in the doorway. His arms were folded and a cigarette dangled rakishly between his lips.
"Just before what?" Lance Shelby demanded, advancing into the room.
For a minute longer, Barbara struggled to regain her composure. There were no ghosts, she told herself sternly, and spooks and spirits materialized only at sйances under the adroit manipulation of phony fortune tellers.
Glancing anxiously at Melinda's waxen face, she hurried to the water cooler and returned to press the cup into the older girl's hand. The question she ignored. This was hardly the time to go on with a sentence that had almost ended in the words, "just before he died."
Because, incredible as it seemed, Lance Shelby was very much alive.
The reporter appeared to be genuinely bewildered.
"Well, come on. Isn't anyone even going to say hello?" he expostulated. "You two characters act as if you'd seen a gho-oh, ho! Everything has suddenly become very clear."
Wheeling abruptly, he strode to the oak-paneled partition at the opposite end of the room. He shoved through Bruce McFarland's private door and rummaged through the editor's desk. With the gusto of an instant tornado, he came breezing back, flapping a beige-colored envelope against the palm of his hand.
"Doesn't anyone ever read the mail around here?" he exclaimed aggrievedly. "I sent this message from the Honolulu airport nearly ten hours ago!"
"Lance, we thought you were dead." Melinda had regained her voice. "That plane crashed!'
He nodded. "So I hear. Lucky for me, I wasn't aboard."
"You must have known that everyone here would be frantic with worry." Barbara's sharp tone held none of the deference usually accorded the star reporter. "Why didn't you cable or telephone as soon as you learned what had happened?"
"Now hold everything! I hadn't the foggiest notion until early this morning that my name was listed among the missing. Believe me, it was a greater shock to me than it was to you!"
Lance slung a leg over the corner of Melinda's desk, treating the girls to one of his famous, off-center smiles.
"Through no fault of my own, I was detained in Hong Kong. The plane on which I held reservations took off without me. Apparently, nobody bothered to cross my name off the passenger manifest, since everybody seems to have taken it for granted that I was aboard." He shrugged. "When I'm busy chasing down a lead, I don't go browsing through every news sheet published in the Crown Colony. I knew nothing of the exaggerated reports of my demise until I landed in Honolulu this morning. Dashed off a cable right away then, of course, but-"
"Oh, what does it matter now?" Melinda cried happily. "You're safe; that's all that matters!"
"My opinion exactly." Lance flicked his hat to the back of his head. "Guess our esteemed editor will be glad to see me back, too. Don't know what he'd use for copy if I weren't around."
Barbara gasped. What overbearing egotism! Granted, Lance Shelby had plenty to be conceited about. He was talented-and handsome-and charming. But she could not help feeling that all of these attributes could be enhanced by at least a semblance of modesty.
His personality flaws were none of her business, though, Barbara told herself. She opened her purse and fished for the notebook she had used the night before.
"See you in the morning," she said, dropping it into her desk drawer. "I really just stopped by to leave my notes on the Nicholson dance."
Melinda smiled absent-mindedly. Before Barbara could reach the hall, however, Lance Shelby's voice arrested her.
"Sure that was your only reason for paying a Sunday call on the Courier? Somehow I got the impression that you were digging for information about me." He tilted a sardonic eyebrow. "Research for my obituary?"
Barbara had been hoping to escape before the subject of her unfinished query recurred to him. Certainly she had no desire to break the news that the mistaken announcement of his death had prompted sightseers to route a series of excursions through his belongings.
"I'm afraid the only obituaries I write concern parties that die on the vine," she hedged.
"Then why ask what story I had been, working on?" he persisted reasonably.
There seemed no way to avoid replying. Barbara took a deep breath. "If you must know, the man who bought the houseboat you used to rent is a friend of mine. I thought that if you had been investigating the activities of gangsters or racketeers, it might account for some of the strange things that have been happening aboard the Albatross."
"Bought the houseboat!" Lance Shelby roared, leaping to his feet.
"Like everyone else, Mr. Dodson thought you were on the plane that crashed," Barbara explained. "Since you only rented the boat by the month, he put the Albatross up for sale."
"Goodness, Lance, it's not that important," Melinda declared. "I never could understand why you kept that creaky old boat, anyway."
"I happen," he said, "to be very fond of fishing."
"All your gear is in a storage room at Dodson's," Barbara put in helpfully.
This statement seemed to relieve his mind. "Just so long as he didn't include my tackle in the sale, I guess it's all right," he conceded. "Uh-you mentioned that strange things have been happening?"
Lance Shelby's attitude had undergone a quick change. Now he was all news-scenting reporter.
"Yes," Barbara said, deciding that her snap judgment of him might have been faulty. "Several people were interested in the Albatross, but my friend succeeded in buying it first. Both he and Mr. Dodson were offered bribes to cancel the sale, and when they refused, an attempt was made last night to rob the boat."
"Is your friend wealthy?" asked Melinda.
Barbara smiled. "No, quite the contrary. Nothing of his was taken. So we assumed that since Whit had nothing of value there, the thief must have been hunting for something belonging to the houseboat's former owner. Did you keep anything expensive aboard the Albatross, Mr. Shelby?"
"My fishing tackle wasn't cheap," he admitted. "By the way, everyone calls me Lance. Now, what was that about my investigating racketeers and gangsters?"
"A number of your articles have concerned notorious criminals. As there seemed to be no other explanation for the houseboat's popularity, I thought you might have come across some incriminating evidence concerning underworld life."
"And cached the evidence aboard my floating oyster palace?" Lance grinned. "Quite an idea. Wish I had thought of it myself."
"Then you don't know of anything concealed on the Albatross?" Barbara bit her lip, chagrined. So much for elaborate theories!
"Nothing except your friend-Whit, is it?" Lance slid off the desk where he had been perched. "I wonder if he'd mind my taking a quick look around the old tub just to make sure the Dodson's didn't overlook any of my gear. Some of those lures would be hard to replace."
"Of course he wouldn't mind. I had intended to drop by there this afternoon, if you'd care to come along."