The Fourth Side of the Triangle (18 page)

“I
don't
understand.”

“Look, maybe John Leslie can be wheedled into letting us into the penthouse after all. Let's give your suggestion a workout.”

It was merely a way of terminating their conversation. Leslie, who with the passage of time seemed to have a deepening respect for the law, could not be wheedled, even by Dane; they argued with him half-heartedly, and with each other snappishly; and finally Judy left Dane in a huff, refusing his offer to see her home.

The next day, Monday, when the trial began, Dane and Judy Walsh were seated on opposite sides of the courtroom aisle.

The trial of Lutetia McKell was not quite a duplicate of her husband's. For one thing, the selection of a jury took almost no time at all. For another, the proceedings developed in an altogether different atmosphere, a here-we-go-again climate that produced more curiosity than heat. The feeling was generated that the district attorney was about to make an ass of himself. As one newspaper put it, “If at first you don't succeed, prosecute the wife.” It was not fair to De Angelus, but newspaperdom is rarely concerned with fairness.

Henry Barton seized the opportunity. Ridicule became his not-so-secret weapon in cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, and what he could not attack with ridicule he undermined by innuendo. For example, when Detective Mack was on the stand to recount his and Sergeant Velie's various visits to the McKell apartment, the attorney for the defense said, “Now, Detective Mack, you've been assigned to this precinct for—how long is it?”

“Two years.”

“Let's take the past six months. Have you had occasion to visit other apartments in other apartment buildings in the neighborhood of the McKell building in the past six months?”

“Yes, sir.”

“On official business?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In your capacity as a police detective?”

“Yes, sir.”

“To investigate cases of forcible entry, armed robbery, burglary, and so forth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“One case only last August
in the very next building to the McKells'?
”

“Yes, sir, but—”

“In that case a housemaid was tied up and the lady of the house assaulted and robbed?”

The district attorney objected strenuously on the usual ground of improper cross, and a pretty by-play developed among the lawyers and the judge, the result of which was that the questions and answers along this line were ordered stricken; but the impression was implanted in the jury's mind that the neighborhood of the McKell apartment building was a regular prey of prowlers, which was what Barton was trying to establish.

On the morning of the third day of the trial, Ellery was glumly studying a color photograph of a gaunt model in an evening gown from Sheila Grey's Lady Dulcea collection when he was rather violently visited by the McKells, father and son.

He sat up alertly, shifting his casts to a less uncomfortable position. “Something up?”

“Last week when you were questioning my wife,” Ashton McKell said, eyes glittering, “do you remember your saying that the television set was her only contact with the outside world?”

“Yes?”

“Look at this!”

“It came,” Dane said, “in this morning's mail.”

It was an envelope addressed to “Mrs. Ashton McKell” at the Park Avenue address. The enclosure, on the stationery of The Princess Soap Company, was signed by a Justin A. Lattimoore, Fourth Vice-President.

Ellery smiled as he read it:

My dear Mrs. McKell:

Our Accounting Department advises me that our check in the amount of five hundred dollars ($500.00), which was posted to you more than three months ago as your prize in the Lucky Number segment of our Princess Hour TV program on the night of September 14th last, has never been cashed.

I am accordingly writing to inquire if you have received the above check. If not, or if for some reason you do not wish to cash it, will you please communicate with us at your early convenience?

Yours very truly,
etc
.

“Well,” Ellery said. “This could be the straw that breaks the district attorney's back.”

“It is,” said Dane. “It has to be!”

“Now let's not get our hopes up too high,” his father cautioned excitedly. “What I can't understand is why Lutetia didn't
tell
us.”

“Don't you know Mother, Dad? She just forgot, that's all!”

“But a prize?” murmured Ellery. “A check?”

“What is money to her, or she to money?” Dane misquoted happily. “And prizes mean publicity. Her mind recoils reflexively from such things. This could be the break, Mr. Queen. It really could.”

“We'll see. Get in touch with this Lattimoore fellow and see if you can't get him up here. We've got to find out all we can about this, and right away.”

One telephone call from the eminent Ashton McKell insured the presence of Fourth Vice-President Justin A. Lattimoore in the Queen hospital room that afternoon. Lattimoore proved to be a fastidiously groomed gentleman with a face the precise shade of flesh-colored grease paint, and (Ellery was positive) with a toupee. He could not seem to decide whether to be more honored by the summons of a captain of industry than supercilious at the sight of a mere writer with two legs in a cast; in any event, he contrived to convey the impression that he was in the company of at least one peer.

“… a quarter-hour morning program for Sudsy Chippos,” Mr. Lattimoore was saying, evidently feeling that the occasion called for a recapitulation of The Princess Soap Company's radio and television schedule, “and another quarter-hour in mid-afternoon for our Princess Belinda and Princess Anita toiletries. In other words, the
A.M
. show is
Doctor Dolly's Family
, and the
P.M
. show is
Life and Laurie Lewis
.

“For TV last season The Princess Hour was a variety show emceed by Bo Bunson, the comedian. I will be frank, gentlemen,” Vice-President Lattimoore said handsomely. “The variety show was a bomb, or suds down the drain, as we say at the shop. Rating-wise, it reeked.

“For this season one of our ad agency's brighter young men came up with a real doozer. We could not scrap the variety show”—Lattimoore coughed—“our Chairman of the Board has great faith in it, and thinks Bunson is the funniest man in show business—but we would add a gimmick to the format. Throughout the show—we're on Wednesday nights in prime time, ten to eleven
P.M
. in the East, as you undoubtedly know—throughout the show a battery of telephone operators would call up people picked out of phone books all over the country by a process I won't bother to describe, and ask them if they were watching The Princess Hour.

“Of course, most of them said yes, and immediately turned to our channel if they weren't watching already. The yes-answerers were switched onto the air between numbers, Bo Bunson talked to them over the phone personally—on the air—and each one was given the chance to guess the Lucky Number for that night's show. The Lucky Number, which could be any number between 1 and 10,000, was selected at random by an IBM machine before we went on the air, and no one, not even the emcee, knew what it was—he had it in a sealed envelope and at strategic spots during the show he exhibited the envelope and made wisecracks about it—supposed to be stimulating suspense-wise, you see.”

Ellery mumbled that he did indeed see; his tone suggested that, for purposes of the subject under discussion, he wished he were temporarily sightless. For the fraction of a moment uncertainty flickered over Mr. Lattimoore's baby face, which looked as if he scrubbed every hour on the hour with Princess Belinda and Princess Anita soaps, and perhaps with Sudsy Chippos as well—but then the smile flashed back on with no kilowatt impaired.

“The gimmick was that everybody won. First prize was $10,000—that was for anyone who guessed a number within 25 of the actual Lucky Number. Say the Lucky Number turned out to be 8,951. Any number picked by a contestant between 8,926 and 8,976 would be considered a bull's-eye; if more than one contestant scored a bull's-eye, the number closest to the Lucky Number was considered first-prize winner, the next closest getting second prize, which was $2,000. Third money went to the next closest, $1,000; fourth prize to the next closest, $500; all others got $100 consolation prizes.

“Quite an idea, wasn't it?” glowed Mr. Lattimoore; but then the glow dimmed. “The only trouble was, it lasted a mere four weeks. Not only did B.T. consider it a flop with knobs on because, he said, it lowered the dignity of Princess products—that's B. T. Worliss, Chairman of the Board—but there were, frankly, hrrm, legal problems, very serious ones. Having to do with the anti-lottery laws. The FCC …” Mr. Lattimoore stopped, the dread initials sticking in his throat. He cleared it. “Well, that's the story of the ill-fated numbers game,” he said with feeble levity. “What else can I tell you gentlemen?”

“And on the telecast of September 14th,” Ellery mumbled, shading his eyes from the Lattimoore effulgence, “Mrs. McKell was one of the lucky persons telephoned?”

“That's right. She came out fourth in our little old guessing game. Took the $500 prize.”

“And the check was never cashed.”

Ashton McKell produced a pink check. “And here it is, Mr. Queen. Lutetia simply isn't used to handling money. She meant to send it to the Church Home, the one she does her needlework for, but she clean forgot.”

When Henry Calder Barton rose to open the defense, he wore a look in marked contrast to the expression of lofty confidence he had displayed previously. The actor was stripped away. Henry Barton had a good thing going suddenly, and he could afford to dispense with the psychology.

He went to work briskly.

“Mr. Graves, you are an assistant account executive with Newby, Fellis, Herkimer, Hinsdale and Levy, an advertising agency located on Madison Avenue? Your firm handles the Princess Soap account for television and radio?”

“Yes.”

Barton led the man skillfully through a description of how the defunct numbers game, a recent feature of The Princess Soap Company's TV evening hour, worked.

“Thank you, Mr. Graves.”

De Angelus did not cross-examine; he objected. The consultation with Judge Everett Hershkowitz before the bench evidently satisfied His Honor, for he overruled the objection and the district attorney sat down to torment a fingernail. Barton's new look had not escaped him.

“Call Miss Hattie Johnson.”

“Miss Johnson, what is your line of work?”

“I am a special telephone operator.”

“You do not work for the telephone company itself?”

“No, sir, for Tel-Operator, Incorporated.” Tel-Operator, Incorporated, turned out to be a firm that supplied operators for private corporations which required a type of answering service that the regular answering services were not prepared to furnish. Usually, the witness explained, this special service was for a limited period of time, such as after a “premium offer” was advertised for sale by a department store, and so on. “We have to be very quick and accurate,” Miss Johnson said.

“And you were one of the operators assigned to The Princess Soap Company's television show Lucky Number gimmick?”

“Yes, sir, on Wednesday nights, for the four weeks it lasted.”

“Do you recall your work in connection with the telecast of Wednesday, September 14th last, Miss Johnson?”

“I do. That was the first show we worked.”

“I show you this transcript. Do you recognize it?”

“Yes, sir. It is a copy of one of my telephone conversations with a person I called that night.”

“Who was the person? Read the name from the transcript, Miss Johnson.”

“‘Mrs. Ashton McKell, 610½ Park Avenue, New York City.'”

Judge Hershkowitz had to resort to his gavel. District Attorney De Angelus was observed to inhale deeply, as after a long run, then fold his arms defensively across his chest.

Barton placed the transcript in evidence. Its contents, read aloud by the witness, almost broke up the court, and the Court almost broke up his gavel. As for the district attorney, he was blitzed.

When order was restored, Barton called Lutetia McKell to the stand.

“—but how could you have forgotten the call, Mrs. McKell? When so much depended on it?”

“I don't know,” Lutetia replied helplessly. “I did remember speaking to some man over the phone—”

“Was that Bo Bunson, Master of Ceremonies of the Princess Soap show?”

“Yes, I remember him now. But I'm afraid none of the conversation struck me with any sense of importance. It all seemed so silly, in fact, my mind simply dropped it out of sight.”

“In any event, you remember the call now?”

“Yes.”

“You remember winning $500 as a result of that call?”

“Now I do.”

“You're a very wealthy woman, Mrs. McKell?”

“I beg your pardon? Surely—”

“And all your financial affairs are handled by others? Your husband? Your family attorney? Banks, and so forth?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then you're not accustomed to handling money?”

“I'm afraid not.”

The D.A. was watching her with admiration, almost affection. The same expression in varying degrees touched the faces of the judge, Barton himself, and Inspector Queen, who was sitting in on the trial and had testified for the prosecution.

“Tell us about your telephone conversation that night with Mr. Bunson.”

“I'm afraid I didn't understand the game very well. I do not watch television as a rule, and it's been so very long since I played games. When—Mr. Bunson, is it?—asked me to guess the Lucky Number, I simply could not think of a number. Any at all. It was so peculiar. My mind just froze. Has that ever happened to you?” She was half turned in the witness chair between Henry Barton and Judge Hershkowitz, and it was a tribute to her palpable helplessness that both men responded to it with sympathetic nods. “At any rate, not wishing to disappoint the young man on the TV, and happening at that moment to notice the studio clock above his head, I think I said something like, ‘Does it matter where I get the number?' and he said something that must have been comical, because the studio audience laughed—I don't recall just what it was—and then I said, ‘Oh, dear, the only number I can think of is the time the clock over your head shows—twenty-two minutes past ten. So I'll say 1022.”