The Fourth Side of the Triangle

“Were you still having her watched, Mr. Winterson?” Ellery asked, not without a touch of malice.

“Oh, no, I’d called Weirhauser off long before that. But Sheila and I had a lot of friends and acquaintances in common, like Countess Roni and so on, so I heard all the gossip. You know how it is.”

“I do now. And after Foster?”

“I can virtually vouch for her lovers — three of them — in the next four years. Sheila was without shame where l’amour was concerned. She didn’t care a button about her reputation, I mean personally, and while she certainly didn’t go around flaunting her affairs, neither did she take any pains to be discreet. None of this hurt The House of Grey in the least, by the way. After all, she wasn’t designing altar pieces for churches. On the contrary, it seemed to add to her glamour. It attracted men to her salon in herds.”

“You say you know of three others in the next four years. Who were they, have you any idea?”

“Of course. Jack Hurt was one.”

“John Francis Hurt III, the auto racer?”

“That’s the one. Jack made no secret of it. He carried Sheila’s photo in his wallet for good luck. He’d show it to you at the drop of a flag. ‘I’m crazy about this little girl,’ he’d say. I’m sure Sheila didn’t go for him because of his wit. But Jack was muscled like a puma — all male animal. She used to go down into the grease pits at the speedway after him; absolutely gone on him. Then one day, as Jack came roaring in from Lap Eighty-nine to get his lube job or his water changed or whatever they do to the racing cars in the pits — lo! no Sheila. Just changed her mind in mid-lap and went on home. He didn’t pine very long, I must say. Latched onto some little blonde who embroidered his name on her jacket, poor slobby-gob, and I believe married her shortly afterward.”

“That’s Jack Hurt the Three,” said Ellery. “Who was his successor?”

“After Hurt? Ronald Van Vester of the veddy high society Van Vesters, who live on the interest of their interest. Don’t know where Sheila spotted him, but she did start ponying up on polo” — Winterson tittered at his little jest — “and before you knew it he was making eyes at her. Well, one hoof in the doorway was all Miss Sheila needed, and there was Master Ronny on the line. But I suppose the smell of horse manure soon palled on her. Exit Ronny.

“Next there was... let me see.” The ineffable Elisha tapped his teeth with a glittering fingernail. “Oh, yes! Some character named Odonnell. The stage actor. Edgar? Edmond? I don’t recall, because nobody ever called him by his first name except in the programs. You must remember him, Mr. Queen, all smoldering black eyes and hatchet profile. First man to play Hamlet according to the Method, after which no one called him anything but Hamlet Odonnell.”

“You said three in four years.”

Winterson explained that he had spent all of 1961 abroad, and so had been out of touch. “What happened while I was catching up on what Paris and Rome were doing I have no idea. She could have been having her fling with the Assistant Commissioner of Sanitation for all I know. Hamlet was the lucky man in 1962, when I got back. And since then...” Winterson paused.

The silence spread like ink. Dane was looking as if he were about to throw up. Ashton McKell looked deathly ill. All this, then, was new to both of them, Ellery thought. As for Judy, she was grasping the arms of her chair as if they were the rails of a chute-the-chutes car at the top of the trestle.

“I suppose I ought to have realized that, sooner or later, Sheila Grey would come to a nasty end,” Winterson said finally. “And yet... she was so utterly charming when she was in love. She needed love. It was the fuel, I think, that made her go, that and her career... God, what a waste. She had the world at her feet.”

Suddenly he was no longer a ridiculous little frou-frou of a man with a caved-in head. His face was the mask of tragedy. Ellery thought: He’s still in love with her.

Winterson jumped to his feet. “If there’s anything else I can tell you, here’s my card. By all means call on me. Goodbye, Miss Walsh, Mr. McKell.” To Dane he said, “I wish you all the luck.”

Ashton said, “My car—”

“Thank you, but I believe I’ll walk for a bit.” And, nodding all around, his smile perfunctory, he darted from the hospital room, leaving the memory of his twisted face and the sluggish overhang of his Turkish tobacco.

“And that was something Mr. Winterson had to get out of his system,” Ellery remarked. “I wonder how many years he’s unconsciously hunted for the opportunity.”

“He was disgusting.” Judy made a face.

“It was also a rich vein, and we mustn’t let it go untapped. I’ll have to depend on one or all of you to be my eyes, ears, and legs.”

“Tell us what you want done, Mr. Queen,” said the elder McKell.