The Fourth Side of the Triangle by Ellery Queen Page A

appeared in court for any reason in fifteen years. What a dreadful business! A dressmaker!” Dane was tempted to ask him if he would have felt better about the whole mess if Sheila Grey’s name had been Van Spuyten, the end result of a long line of patroons. But he did not, for he suspected that his mother felt very much the same way.
    â€œTell Mother what you told me, Mr. Heaton.”
    â€œWhy I haven’t been able to pry your father out of the hands of the police? Well, Lutetia, Ashton cannot prove an alibi. He has told the authorities where he was at the time of the—of the event, but they’re unable to corroborate it. Therefore, they are continuing to hold him. Now. Although the charge is the most serious one under the law—with the possible exception of treason, of course, and the last treason indictment I can remember anywhere is that against John Brown by the State of Virginia—”
    â€œMr. Heaton,” said Dane politely, but firmly. He could see that his mother was holding herself together by sheer heroism.
    â€œI’m rambling, forgive me, Lutetia. This has upset me more than I can say. However, even though murder is among the gravest of charges, an accused is presumed innocent until proved guilty, thank God, and I do not for one moment suppose such proof can be obtained in this case.”
    â€œThen why haven’t you been able to get Ashton’s release on bond?” Lutetia asked timidly. “Dane tells me you said that New York State allows bond even in a charge of first—in a first-degree charge.”
    â€œIt’s complicated,” sighed Richard M. Heaton. “We have fallen afoul of a very poor climate, politically speaking, on the bail question, I mean here in the city. Of course, you don’t follow such things, but only a few months ago there was the case of another, ah, of a very prominent man who shot his wife to death. He was released on $100,000 bail, and he promptly fled the country. It has made the courts and the district attorney’s office extremely shy where bond in capital cases is concerned, especially since the newspapers have raked up the other case and are asking quite maliciously if this will prove a repetition.”
    â€œBut Ashton wouldn’t do a thing like that,” Lutetia moaned. “Richard, he’s innocent . Only guilty men flee. It isn’t fair. ”
    â€œI’m afraid we don’t live in as ideal a democracy as we sometimes boast,” the old lawyer said sadly. “The rich and socially prominent are very often discriminated against in our society. We could probably force the issue in the courts, but the trouble is …” He hesitated.
    â€œThe trouble is what, Mr. Heaton?” Dane asked sharply.
    â€œYour father seems reluctant to battle it out legally. In fact, he’s all but forbidden me to.”
    â€œWhat!”
    â€œBut why?” asked Lutetia blankly.
    â€œWhy indeed? In view of the state of public opinion, he seems to feel that it would be wiser not to press for bail. He actually told me, ‘Perhaps the public is right. If I were a poor man I wouldn’t be able to raise the kind of bail that would be set in a case like this. Let it go.’ I must confess I hadn’t expected such a thoroughly unrealistic attitude from Ashton McKell, and I told him so. A martyr’s attitude will avail him nothing, nothing at all.”
    Lutetia sniffed into her tiny bit of cambric. “Ashton has always been so principled. But I do wish …” Then she cried quietly.
    Dane comforted her, thinking that neither she nor the lawyer had caught the point. Perhaps Ashton himself was not aware of it. Though his father continued to insist quite rationally on his innocence of the murder charge, he was carrying a heavy load of guilt around for another crime; and of this one he was guilty as hell—consorting, as Lutetia would have termed it, with another woman. It