The Fourth Side of the Triangle

“I agree with Judy. It would mean revealing the contents of Sheila’s letter.” Ashton McKell shook his head. “And that would plunge my son deep into the case, Mr. Queen.”

“All I intend to tell my father,” Ellery said, “is that Dane is being blackmailed, not the basis for it. Leave Inspector Richard Queen to an expert, won’t you? I know how to handle him; I’ve had enough practice! Agreed? Dane?”

Dane was quiet. Then he threw up his hands. “I’m ready to be guided by whatever you say, Mr. Queen.”

Judy Walsh came away from the hospital meeting in a sweet euphoria. How poor Dane must have suffered! How unreasonably, blindly female she had been! But from now on... ah, things would be different between them. She was so very sure her love, her compassion, her active assistance, would help him overcome the frightening problem of his rages. If necessary, she would get him to seek psychiatric help. And then, with the homicidal blackmailer caught and eliminated from their lives, the case would be closed forever, Sheila Grey would become an ebbing if always unpleasant memory, they would find peace, would carve out new lives for themselves... in short, they would live happily ever after.

“So Dane McKell is being blackmailed,” said Inspector Queen, “and I’m not to ask any questions about it. Is that it, Ellery?”

“That’s it,” and his son beamed.

“Well, you just forget it. I don’t buy blind pigs in pokes, or whatever the blasted saying is. Even from you.”

“Dad, have I ever steered you wrong?”

“Thousands of times,” the Inspector replied, “thousands.”

“Name one.”

“Sure. There was the time—”

“Never mind,” Ellery said. “Dad, listen to me this once, will you? If I weren’t laid up I wouldn’t even bother you with it. It’s merely a case of laying a trap for a blackmailer.”

“What’s Dane being blackmailed about?” demanded the old gentleman.

“I can’t tell you now.”

“It’s in connection with the Grey case, of course.”

“I tell you I can’t. You’ll know the whole story later. Don’t you trust me any longer?”

“I don’t trust myself these days,” the Inspector said with gloom. “The D.A. and I have practically stopped talking to each other. I’ve never seen such a case.”

“You want to settle it?”

“Of course I want to settle it!”

“Then do it my way, Dad.”

“You’re blackmailing me!”

“Right,” Ellery said cheerfully. “Then it’s a deal? You post your men at the main post office, have them watch the General Delivery window. The postal authorities will co-operate. They’ll give your men the tip-off when the fellow shows up—”

“And suppose they make a mistake?” the old man asked sourly. “And suppose the city is sued for false arrest, with me in the middle of it? How do I defend myself for ordering an arrest without having seen the evidence that a crime may have been committed? What do I do, refer them to you? Nothing doing, Ellery.”

But Ellery had an answer for everything this morning. A security guard from the McKell organization, one of the scores employed to watch the McKell warehouses, docks, factories, and other buildings, could be assigned to watch the post office along with the regular police. When the trap was sprung, this privately employed guard would make a citizen’s arrest, with the police staying out of it. If the arrest were resisted, the police could then step in, restrain and compel — their duty at any time — with impunity.

Inspector Queen listened in silence. He was sorely, sorely tempted. The Grey case had been his headache since the discovery of the body; it was turning into a migraine. If it was true, as Ellery had hinted, that the blackmailer in question might turn out to be the slayer of Sheila Grey, one Richard Queen was off the hook. He might even get a departmental citation out of it.

In the end the old man yielded, as Ellery had known he would.

So on the next day the lobby of the great post office behind Pennsylvania Station was sprinkled with plainclothesmen and detectives from Inspector Queen’s command, along with Ash-ton McKell’s private guard. The postal authorities had agreed to co-operate. The package containing $2,000 in $20 bills (instructions of “Mr. I. M. Ecks,” to the contrary notwithstanding, not unmarked) had been made up, mailed, had arrived, was waiting to be picked up.

The trap was baited and laid.

It was never sprung.

No one showed up to claim the package.

Whether the blackmailer had spotted the police waiting to arrest him, or he had been scared away by his own guilty imaginings, there was no way of telling; the fact was, the bait lay beyond the General Delivery window, unnibbled.

So passed December 28th.

On the morning of December 29th...

The real fireworks had occurred late the night before, in the hospital room of one Ellery Queen. The Inspector had barged in long after visiting hours, angrily flushed, triumphant, and loaded for bear.