The Fourth Side of the Triangle (19 page)

“1022,” Henry C. Barton said to the jury in his summation. “Hold on to that number, ladies and gentlemen, because it's going to direct you to clear my client of the charge for which she's being tried.

“Ten. Twenty. Two.

“At twenty-two minutes past the hour of ten o'clock on the night Sheila Grey was shot to death, Lutetia McKell in her own voice and person was answering the telephone in the McKell apartment. You have examined the photostatic evidence of the telephone operator's handwritten report—Mrs. McKell's name, her address, her telephone number, the exact time the operator called her and she answered in the McKell apartment. You have listened to an excerpt from the taped recording of the actual show as it was telecast, and you have heard the unmistakable voice of Mrs. McKell talking to Mr. Bunson while the show was on the air, and you have heard her point out the time on the studio clock and use it as her number entry in the guessing game.

“1022.

“There was no collusion. This was by no stretch of anyone's imagination a put-up job. The advertising agency did not invent this game, The Princess Soap Company did not pay for its production and telecast, all to provide an alibi for Lutetia McKell. Nor is there any way in the world that Lutetia McKell could have anticipated that she would be called at the exact time to provide her with an alibi. These are hard facts, and hard facts do not lie.

“At 10:22
P.M
. Lutetia McKell was
in
her own apartment, speaking over the phone in the hearing of millions of TV viewers.

“At 10:23
P.M
. Miss Grey was shot and killed in
her
apartment two stories above the McKells'.

“One minute later. Sixty seconds!”

Barton took a little stroll before the jury to allow his words time to sink into their heads.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I do not envy the prosecution its job. The district attorney—for all the evidence he has presented about cartridges, revolvers, and fingerprints; for all his charges of jealousy—has the impossible task of asking this jury of intelligent men and women to believe that Mrs. McKell—who, while certainly not showing her years, still is no longer at the Olympic Games sprinter age—hung up her telephone after talking to Bo Bunson, left her apartment, rang and waited for the elevator or sprinted up two flights of stairs (can you see Mrs. McKell sprinting, ladies and gentlemen?) to the penthouse, surreptitiously and cautiously gained entry to the Grey apartment—and I would have you remember that at no time have the People introduced evidence to indicate that Mrs. McKell had any means of gaining that entry to the Grey apartment—surreptitiously and cautiously stole into Miss Grey's bedroom, searched for the revolver, found the revolver, sneaked into Miss Grey's workroom, confronted Miss Grey long enough for the poor woman to cry out, and then shot her to death …
all in sixty seconds!

“I defy Jesse Owens in his prime to do it! I invite the district attorney to try it himself. It simply couldn't be done. It was a physical and temporal impossibility.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one point for you to consider in judging the guilt or innocence of this defendant: Did Lutetia McKell, at precisely 10:23
P.M
. on the night of September 14th, shoot Sheila Grey to death in the Grey apartment, or did she not? She did not. She did not, and you now know she did not. And the reason you know she did not is simply that she could not.
She had not time.
”

The case went to the jury at a quarter past eleven on December 23rd, after a brief charge by Judge Hershkowitz (“You are to consider only the question: Did the defendant on the night of September 14th, at 10:23
P.M.,
fire the shot that killed Sheila Grey? If the defendant did, she is guilty of murder as charged in the indictment. If you find that she did not fire the shot, then you must find that she is not guilty of the crime as charged in the indictment. In making your decision, you must consider the testimony you have heard in this courtroom concerning the accused's telephone conversation at about that same time. If you hold that testimony to be relevant, you must then consider the matter of timing. This court believes the matter of timing in this case to be all-important …”). At half-past noon the jury had reached a verdict, when the defense attorney and the district attorney had not yet returned from their lunch (the judge, an old hand, had lunch sent into his chambers). Barton and De Angelus, notified, scurried back to the courtroom with their lunches half consumed.

The headline on the tabloid that was first to print the news, FREE LU, was not—as some English-speaking foreigner might have interpreted—an imperative; it was a statement of what the jury had in fact done.

Dane's mother was acquitted, as her husband before her had been.

Judge Hershkowitz said to the jury, “Your verdict is justified by the evidence … Two indictments have now been returned for the murder of Sheila Grey, and in each case the jury, having seen and heard the evidence, has refused to convict. The killer is, accordingly, still at large. We do not wish an innocent person to be pronounced guilty; at the same time we do not wish a guilty person to escape unpunished.”

This last was taken—accurately—by police, district attorney's office, and press alike as a juridical nudge to get on with the job, and this time do it right.

The McKells were too overjoyed to weigh nuances. Ashton exclaimed, “What a wonderful Christmas present. We'll all be together on the Twenty-fifth, and without this nightmare hanging over us. Mr. Barton, how can I express my gratitude?”

The lawyer shook his head. “Don't thank me, thank that fellow Lattimoore and his uncashed $500 check. All I did was follow through. With that evidence, any kid fresh out of law school could have earned an acquittal.”

The only one present who was not happily jabbering away was Lutetia herself. When Dane asked her why she was so preoccupied, his mother said, “It will always be on my conscience.”

“
What
, Mother?”

“Replacing the blank cartridges in that revolver with live ones. Why did I do it? She would still be alive—”

“Stop it, Mother. This instant.”

It took them a long time to restore her spirits. At one point Dane got the impression that she would have been content to give herself up and stand trial all over again. As he said to his father, “Thank God for the rule of double jeopardy!”

Henry Calder Barton did not leave the courtroom with them. He went over to talk to the district attorney, who was talking to Inspector Queen.

“As His Honor would say, Henry,
mazel tov,
” De Angelus said sourly.

“What are you congratulating him for?” snarled old man Queen. “A baby could have walked off with this case. Soap!”

Barton grinned. “I couldn't agree more, Inspector. Uh … Mr. D.A. I know this isn't the best time in the world to ask if you'll let my client, that Gogarty boy, cop a plea for manslaughter. But it would save everybody time and money. What do you say?”

De Angelus grunted, “It sure as hell isn't. Do you realize that lightning has struck me twice in this Grey murder? With Dick Queen here standing under the same tree?”

“Why take it out on Gogarty?”

“Talk to me about it tomorrow. Today I wouldn't make bargains with my own mother.”

“Why, Teddy, you wouldn't be disgruntled because two innocent people have been found not guilty, would you?”

“Look, Henry, I'm unhappy, Inspector Queen's unhappy, everybody's unhappy except you and the McKells. So let's leave it at Merry Christmas, huh?”

Ellery was unhappy, too, the impending Christmas never having seemed less Merry. For one thing, he would have to spend it in the hospital; and the half-promise of his doctor that he might be home and hobbling around before the New Year carried exactly as much conviction as half-promises usually do.

He was now mobile to the extent of wheeling himself about the corridors, so he helped the ravishing blond nurse decorate the Christmas tree on their floor, and he almost enjoyed the Swedish
julotta
celebration afterward. But the only real pleasure he took was in the joy of the McKell family.

His unhappiness had a broader base, a disdainful disappointment in himself. Armchair detective! What satisfaction he had taken in his role in the case of Ashton McKell—Phase One, as he had come to think of it—was erased by his nonexistent role in Phase Two. By himself he had come up with nothing whatever to help Lutetia. The letter from The Princess Soap Company, from which her subsequent acquittal stemmed, had simply turned up one morning through the courtesy of the ineffable Lattimoore. Its import would have been obvious to a rookie policeman.

And the killer of Sheila Grey was still at large, as Judge Hershkowitz had pointed out, and the great man hadn't a clue in his head that might be called promising.

Oh, well, Ellery thought with a sigh. At least the McKells' troubles are over.

The McKells' troubles were over for exactly one weekend. Father, mother, and son had had a pleasant, if not joyous, Christmas together. They had attended services at the great unfinished cathedral on Christmas Eve, mingling unnoticed with the crowds of worshipers. In the morning they attended services at a chapel in a poor neighborhood whose congregation was almost entirely foreign-born and whose “language” newspaper had run no photograph of the McKell family. The remainder of Christmas Day they spent quietly at home. They had exchanged gifts, listened to the
Missa Solemnis
on the hi-fi, read the newspapers.

On Monday, Lutetia expressed a desire to see the ocean. Ramon had been given the day off, for Ashton was at home—the McKell enterprises, like most companies, were keeping Monday as part of the holiday—so Dane drove his parents down to Long Beach, where for almost two hours they strolled beside the gray Atlantic sweeping endlessly in from Europe. The walk made them hungry, and when they returned home Lutetia took pleasure in preparing a hearty supper of soup and sirloin steak with her own hands. Ashton read aloud from Matthew, they listened to the enchanting music of Buxtehude's
Missa Brevis
and the majestic Mendelssohn
Elijah
sung ineffably by the Huddersfield Choral Society, and then they called it a day.

Dane was still eating breakfast as well as dining with his parents; he supposed this would stop when he could slip his life back into its independent groove once more, an opportunity he was on the lookout for these days. He was at breakfast in his parents' apartment, then, two days after Christmas, when Ramon—waiting to drive Ashton to his office—brought in the mail containing the bulky brown envelope.

Ashton, shuffling through the mail, handed the brown envelope to Dane. It was a long one made of kraft paper. Dane slit it open, removed its contents, glanced over them—and the cup he set down in the saucer rattled.

“Dane?” said Lutetia. “Is something the matter?”

He continued to read; his complexion had turned gluey.

“Son, what is it?” Ashton asked.

Dane muttered, “Now it will have to come out.”

“What will have to come out?”

Dane rose. “I'll tell you, Dad. But first I've got to make a phone call.”

Automatically he went to his old room, sat down at his old desk. For a moment he buried his face in his hands. Then he got a grip on himself and dialed a number.

“Judy?”

“Dane.” She sounded remote.

“Judy, I can tell you now what I wasn't able to tell you before.” The words came tumbling out. “About what's been worrying me—making me act toward you the way I … Please. Would you—can you—meet me right away in Ellery Queen's room at the hospital?”

Judy said uncertainly, “All right.” She hung up.

“Dane,” Ashton McKell said from the doorway; Lutetia was peering anxiously from behind him. “You said you'd tell me.”

“Come with me to see Ellery Queen, Dad. Mother, not you.”

“Your mother will stay here.”

“Whatever you think best, dear.”

Left alone, Lutetia frowned out her picture window. The world outside was hurrying so. Trouble, always trouble. Ever since … But Lutetia shut her mind down very firmly. That way lay unpleasantness. There was always one's duty, no matter how trifling, for relief. She rang for her maid. “Margaret, I shall want my needlework. Tell Helen she may begin clearing off the breakfast things.”

Ellery greeted them with ebullience. “It's official,” he chortled. “I'll be out of this Bastille in a few days.” Then he said, in a different tone, “What's up now?”

Dane handed him the kraft envelope. He peered in. Inside lay a smaller envelope, which he took out; pasted to the smaller envelope was a photograph of three written words:
For the Police
. Inside the smaller envelope, as in a Chinese puzzle box, there was an envelope smaller still, and on it was pasted a photo of a complete handwritten sentence:
To be opened only in the event I die of unnatural causes
. And inside the innermost envelope he found the photograph of a holograph statement about three-quarters of an ordinary page long.

Ellery's head shot up.

“Sheila Grey,” he said sharply. “Is this her handwriting?”

Dane nodded bitterly. Ashton said, “I've examined it, compared it with, well, some letters I have. It's her handwriting without a doubt.” There was nothing in his expression at all, nothing. Only his voice betrayed him.

Ellery glanced over the letter. Every jot of the photographed handscript stood out starkly.

“Miss Walsh.” He held the photo out to her. “Read this aloud. I want to hear it in a woman's voice.”

“Mr. Queen.”

“Please.”

Judy took it from him as if it were smeared with filth. She began to read; twice she had to pause to swallow.

“‘Dane McKell tonight asked if he could come up to my apartment for a nightcap,'” Judy read. “‘I told him I had work to do, but he insisted. In the apartment he refused to leave and nothing I could say made him do so. I lost my temper and slapped him. He then tried to …'”