Read Online The Fourth Side of the Triangle by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online Page B

same trace of anxiety. Did this mean she was giving the old man the gate? Or was she playing some sort of game with both of them? Damn this development! It had really fouled everything up. (How could love foul up anything? So maybe he wasn’t in love with her after all.)
    He stopped before the ottoman and took her hands in his. “All right, baby, we’ll let the plot write itself. On your terms. Maybe I’ve escaped a fate worse than death. Lovers, is it? Let’s get started.”
    Her arms tugged, and he let himself fall.
    The next morning he was in a more comfortable frame of mind. Having savored the taste and depths of her, he could not doubt her. It was not a game—however brief it might turn out to be, it was not a game. He was convinced that she had told him the truth.
    So Sheila was a one-man-at-a-time woman, and he had accomplished his purpose. In her forthrightness, Sheila would certainly have told his father, at the start of their affair, what she had told Dane; so it could come as no surprise to him when she broke it off.
    This should send his father back to his mother, with no need for a confrontation—no need, when it came to that, for either of his parents to know how the trick had been accomplished. There was no reason for the elder McKell to learn that Sheila’s new lover was his son; and let Lutetia think her husband had settled back in the nest of his own volition. It would comfort her.
    But something was—not exactly wrong; off-key, perhaps. He offered Sheila a key to his apartment, and she refused it. “Not yet, darling. I’m still enjoying my illicit status.” Instead, she offered him a key to hers.
    And when the following Wednesday came, he could not see her. “I’m only human, darling,” she said over the phone, a smile in her voice. “Not tonight. Tomorrow night?”
    That Wednesday night, as usual, Ashton McKell did not come home at his other-weekday hour. He was gone all evening.
    Sheila had lied to him. It must be that. Yet how could it be? Or was she easing his father off? That was it. He was probably taking it hard, and she had decided to let him down gradually. Still, it meant that he and his father were sharing Sheila’s circular Hollywood bed. It left him with a vile taste.
    Until Wednesday, September 14th. On that day Dane phoned his mother to ask how she was. She was fine, Lutetia said, although disappointed.
    â€œYour father and I were planning to lunch together downtown,” Lutetia said. “While we were discussing it at breakfast, there was a phone call from Washington. It was the President’s appointments secretary. The President wanted to see Ashton today, so there went our plans.” She laughed her tinkly laugh. “I must say Father didn’t seem to appreciate the honor. He was actually annoyed. Almost balked at letting me pack his overnight bag. In the end, of course, he went. You don’t turn down the President of the United States.”
    Overnight bag …
    â€œSheila.”
    â€œDane? Hi, darling!”
    â€œSee you tonight?”
    â€œWell …”
    â€œHow about dinner at Louis’s?”
    â€œAll right, dear, but let’s make it early. I’ll have to be back before ten.”
    â€œHow come?”
    â€œI still have gobs of work to do on my designs before the collection is finished.”
    He could not help wondering what she would use as an excuse after her collection was completed. At the same time, he was puzzled. Overnight bag … Had the whole story of the presidential call been a put-up job? Or just the part about overnight?
    They had Louis’s special salad, which was not on the menu, but Sheila ate it as if it had been prepared by a diner chef. He was asked please not to dawdle over his coffee. They were on the sidewalk at 9:30.
    â€œHow about a nightcap, Sheila? A quick one?”
    She apparently could not find a plausible way to refuse.