The Fourth Side of the Triangle

There was a long pause. Lutetia’s eyes were shut again. Judy’s lips had turned pearly. In the silence the old clock on the Inspector’s wall ticked noisily.

Finally Inspector Queen asked in a very kind voice, “Would you care to answer that question, Mrs. McKell?”

Lutetia opened her eyes. Her little tongue-tip flicked into view and vanished.

Ashton said hoarsely, “Don’t answer another question, Lu. Not one more!”

But Lutetia said, “Why, no, Inspector Queen, I... don’t know that I can.”

It was a painful moment. Dane wished he were a thousand miles away. Judy seemed about to be sick. Ashton’s hand groped for his wife’s and engulfed it.

“Motive,” said the Inspector. “Opportunity. No alibi. And here are the means. You’ll recall we took a set of everyone’s fingerprints for comparison purposes after your arrest, Mr. McKell. So we had Mrs. McKell’s on file. Well, right after we found these blanks today, we examined them for prints. We found a partial print of Mrs. McKell’s right forefinger and thumb on the jackets of three of these five blanks. And nobody else’s. That means that you, Mrs. McKell, and you alone, handled those blanks. You removed them from the gun that subsequently killed Miss Grey.”

Lutetia nodded a very little, like an old woman in her dotage. Even the Inspector seemed to realize that it was not a nod of acquiescence so much as an uncontrollable tremor.

“Hold on,” said Ashton McKell hoarsely. “Did you find any fingerprints on the cases of the live shells in the gun at the time Sheila Grey’s body was found?”

“We did,” Inspector Queen replied, “and if the D.A. knew I’d told you that I’d face departmental charges. Well, I’ve stuck my neck out before. I suppose I want you people to know we’re not making wild charges out of pique. Yes, we found unmistakable prints of Mrs. McKell’s fingers on two of the five live cartridges. Now you know what this is all about. You, you alone, Mrs. McKell, substituted the live shells for the blank ones in the gun that killed Sheila Grey. You, and you alone, Mrs. McKell, turned that harmless gun into a murder weapon. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t come to the conclusion that you did so for the purpose of committing murder with it.

“So let’s try it again, Mrs. McKell. Do you have anything to tell me?”

“No, you don’t!” shouted Ashton. He actually clapped his hand over his wife’s mouth. “Don’t breathe another syllable, Lu! You don’t have to say a word till you’ve had a chance to talk to O’Brien. That’s my wife’s right, Inspector!”

“It certainly is.” The old policeman was on his feet now. “But I’m going to ask you one more question anyway. Mrs. McKell, did you shoot Sheila Grey to death?”

“She’s not going to answer,” Ashton said furiously.

The Inspector shrugged. “Get the wheels rolling, Velie,” he said. “Drop the suspicion-of-murder charge. I’ve already talked to the district attorney, and he agrees that without satisfactory answers — and they’re not satisfactory — Mrs. McKell is to be formally charged with the murder of Sheila Grey.”

Bail was speedily arranged. Ashton McKell had said, “Let’s have no nonsense about not accepting bond. One fool in the family is enough.”

Lutetia was submissive. Had her husband advised it, she would have marched with equal submissiveness to jail, to make her bed with the prostitutes, drug addicts, shoplifters, and drunks in the euphemistically named House of Detention for Women in Greenwich Village.

Robert O’Brien was hors de combat — this combat, at any rate. The legal warrior was occupied with another case, also a murder indictment, for the trial of which he had exhausted his last legal delay. “The guy is a professional hood,” he told Ashton. “I’m positive he’s committed at least two gangland executions with which he’s never even been charged, and he’ll sure as hell commit more if he gets the opportunity. But he didn’t commit this one, and this is the one I’m concerned with. Of course, as soon as we get Falconetti’s trial out of the way I’ll be back with you, Mr. McKell. But I can’t predict just when that will be. You’d better get another lawyer.”

The tapestries that had graced the walls of the Château de Saint-Loy — unicorns, vainly coursed by hounds and hunters, captured and gentled by comely virgins; Helen, not yet of Troy, and her retinue departing for Cytherea; King Louis confuting the heathen — looked down upon a scene that was certainly not the least strange they had viewed in their long centuries.

There was Lutetia McKell presiding over her tea service as if nothing had happened. “Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea, Judy? You look chilled. I’ve some of your favorite keemun. Ashton? Dane?”

They exchanged despairing glances. “I don’t think any of us wants tea at the moment, Mother,” Dane said. “Dad was saying something.”

“Forgive me, dear. I’m afraid I wasn’t listening closely.”

Her husband inhaled. “Lutetia. Did you substitute the live cartridges for the blanks?”

“Yes, dear,” said Lutetia.

Dane cried, “Why?”