The Fourth Side of the Triangle

“And yet,” Ellery went on, “one thing has never been mentioned. It was not, after all, Ashton McKell who called each Wednesday on Sheila Grey, was it? It was Dr. Stone. Correct? That was your invariable practice?”

The prisoner nodded slowly. Dane looked chagrined.

“Ashton McKell got into the Continental, and Dr. Stone climbed out. Somewhere between the back door of the Cricket Club and that garage off Park Avenue, Ashton McKell with the assistance of the contents of a little black bag became Dr. Stone. The question I want answered — the one that nobody seems to have thought of asking — is: Mr. McKell, what happened to your little black bag?”

Dane’s father looked confused. “I’ll have to think... Does it matter, Mr. Queen?”

Ellery banged on one of his casts. “Does it matter!” he cried. “Obviously the police haven’t found it, or you can bet it would be one of the People’s exhibits at the trial right now. There hasn’t been a word about ‘Dr. Stone’ — no identification of the bag, no testimony about Dr. Stone’s weekly visits to the Grey apartment, no identification of you as Dr. Stone, no placing of the ‘doctor’ on the scene of the crime, and so on. Not only haven’t the police found the bag containing your make-up materials, they’ve never even connected you with such a bag. Seems to me it’s proved the perfect disguise. Too perfect. So I repeat: What happened to the bag?”

Ashton shook his head, sank into a chair, shading his eyes.

“Take it a step at a time,” Ellery said encouragingly. “You had it with you when you left the airport that night after getting off the plane from Washington?”

“Yes. I remember carrying it into Sheila’s — Miss Grey’s apartment. I was there such a short time. Did I...? Yes, I had it when I left. I recall shifting it from one hand to the other as I walked the streets — changing hands, because I was also carrying my overnight bag. And I had it with me in that bar. I know, because I recall setting it down on the bar stool beside me.”

“Do you remember taking it home with you, Mr. McKell?”

“I didn’t have it when I got home. I’m sure of that. Could I have left it in the bar? No... I recall picking it up as I left the bar... I wouldn’t have taken it home. Usually I kept it locked up in my room at the Cricket. But I was closer to Grand Central at the time—”

“Grand Central,” Ellery said softly.

Ashton was looking astonished. “I did say Grand Central, didn’t I? How our minds play tricks on us! That’s it, of course. I checked it at the baggage room, or whatever it’s called — the counter. When I left the bar I must have walked all the way down to Grand Central. And I didn’t remember it!”

“Where is the baggage check, Mr. McKell?”

“Probably still in the suit I wore the night I got home.”

Dane said slowly, “Then how is it the police didn’t find it when they searched your things?”

“Never mind that now, Dane,” Ellery said briskly. “Get on this phone and call your mother. Have her look for it at once.”

It was the senior maid, old Margaret, who answered.

“But I can’t call Mrs. McKell,” Margaret protested. “Herself says I’m not to disturb her for no reason, Mr. Dane, not a single one.” It seemed that his mother had locked the door in the corridor leading to her separate apartment — bedroom, bath, sitting room — with the strictest instructions. Meals were to be left on a wagon at the door. She would not see anyone, and she would not answer the telephone.

“Maggie, listen to me. Did you find anything in my father’s rooms the morning we got the news about Miss Grey? Or afterward? Did you find...?”

He was about to say “a tan suit,” but old Margaret interrupted him. “The phone, Mr. Dane,” came her Irish whisper. “Maybe it’s tapped.” Dane was dumfounded. The possibility had not occurred to him. Could it be that Margaret knew about the suit, had found the baggage check?

To his further surprise, Margaret uttered three more words and hung up on him. He put the receiver down foolishly.

“Mother won’t talk on the phone and Margaret’s afraid it may be tapped. But I think she knows. She said to me, ‘Go to Bridey,’ and hung up. Dad, who the deuce is Bridey?”

“It’s her younger sister, Bridget Donnelly. Her husband used to work for me.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand, Dane,” said Judy. “You go and do as old Maggie says. Find Bridey.”

“Miss Walsh is right,” said Ellery. “And do it fast, Dane. I don’t know how long I can bluff that pair out there into letting me keep custody of your father.”

Ramon drove him over to Chelsea in the Bentley. Mrs. Donnelly lived in a crumble-edged brownstone, in a musty but spotless apartment. She was a stouter version of her sister Margaret. “You say you’ll be Mister Dane McKell?” she demanded as she showed him into a parlor decorated with litho-chromes of St. Lawrence O’Toole and the Sacred Heart. “And how would I be knowing that?”