The Fourth Side of the Triangle

“Your father seems reluctant to battle it out legally. In fact, he’s all but forbidden me to.”

“What!”

“But why?” asked Lutetia blankly.

“Why indeed? In view of the state of public opinion, he seems to feel that it would be wiser not to press for bail. He actually told me, ‘Perhaps the public is right. If I were a poor man I wouldn’t be able to raise the kind of bail that would be set in a case like this. Let it go.’ I must confess I hadn’t expected such a thoroughly unrealistic attitude from Ashton McKell, and I told him so. A martyr’s attitude will avail him nothing, nothing at all.”

Lutetia sniffed into her tiny bit of cambric. “Ashton has always been so principled. But I do wish...” Then she cried quietly.

Dane comforted her, thinking that neither she nor the lawyer had caught the point. Perhaps Ashton himself was not aware of it. Though his father continued to insist quite rationally on his innocence of the murder charge, he was carrying a heavy load of guilt around for another crime; and of this one he was guilty as hell — consorting, as Lutetia would have termed it, with another woman. It was not as if he despised his wife and, in despising her, sought a more loving pair of arms, bought or offered gratis. Ashton did not despise Lutetia; he loved her. It was like loving a piece of fragile chinaware, the slightest jar to which would crack it. He had been responsible for cracking the delicate image, and he must be feeling the same sort of shame and guilt as if, in fact, he had been contemptuous of it.

Dane went to see his father. The elder McKell looked like a hollow reproduction of himself — as if he had had his stuffing scooped out. Dane could hardly bear to look at him.

Ashton asked, in tones softer than Dane could remember, “Son, how are you? How is your mother?”

“We’re fine. The question is, Dad, how are you?”

“This is all a dream, and I’ll soon wake up. But then I know I’m awake — that the past was the dream. It’s something like that, son.”

They chatted awkwardly for a while, about Lutetia chiefly, how she was reacting to her overturned world. Finally Dane got around to the object of his visit. “Dad, I want you to tell me all about that night — what you did, where you went. In detail. Just as you told the police.”

“If you want me to, Dane.” The elder man considered for a moment, sighing. “I got to the penthouse just before ten o’clock — the cab was held up by an accident on the highway, or it would have been sooner. The traffic from the airport isn’t very heavy at that hour.”

About ten o’clock. It would have been mere minutes after he himself had left her alive in the penthouse.

“I didn’t stay long. She was terribly upset. By what she wouldn’t say.”

Dane bent over the pad, on which he was taking notes, to cover his wince. “How long were you there, Dad? As exactly as you can recall.”

“She asked me to leave almost at once, so I did. I couldn’t have been there more than several minutes. I’d say I left at 10:03 at the latest.”

“Where did you go from there?”

Ashton said quietly, “I was rather upset myself. I walked.”

“Where? For how long?” And why didn’t I ask him why he was upset? Dane thought. Because I know, that’s why...

“I just don’t remember. It couldn’t have been too long, I suppose. I do remember being in a bar—”

“What bar?”

“I don’t know. I had a drink and talked to the bartender, I remember that.”

“You’re sure you don’t know where the bar is?”

“Not even approximately, although for some reason First Avenue sticks in my head. But I can’t honestly say it was there. Somewhere in the Sixties — I think. A side street, I seem to recall that, anyway. I was simply not paying any attention to things like that.” A ghost of a smile touched the rocky face. “I certainly wish now that I had.”

“And you didn’t notice the name of the bar?”

“Or I’ve forgotten. You know, a lot of those little places have no names. Just Bar.”

“Have you an idea how long you were in there?”

“Quite a while. More than a few minutes. I do remember leaving the place and walking some more. Finally I took a cab—”

“I don’t suppose you remember the cabbie’s name or number.”

“God, no. Or when, or where, or what street I got out at. I remember getting out some blocks short of home because I suddenly wanted air. I walked the rest of the way.”

“And you can’t even recall what time it was when you got home?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea, Dane.” Dane knew that his mother did not know, either, for she had told him, “I didn’t know your father was home until early morning, when I woke up.”

“I’m afraid, son, the information isn’t of any use.”

Dane wanted to talk about his father’s having replaced the silver cigaret case; he had even thought of bringing up the whole business of his relationship with Sheila Grey; but just then the turnkey terminated his visit. The street was steaming with gasoline fumes and oily vapors, but the air seemed sweetly pure after the jail.