The Fourth Side of the Triangle by Ellery Queen Page A

joint—”
    â€œI really can’t, I’m too far behind. Tomorrow is out.”
    Tomorrow was Wednesday. The thought struck him like a club. Of course. She wouldn’t date Yves St. Laurent himself on a Wednesday night. Wednesday nights were reserved for Daddy-o.
    But there were other days and nights—the fights, the ballet, opera in a Connecticut barn, a county fair, a formal dinner at Pavillon one night and chopped liver at Lindy’s the next. On several occasions they spent the evening at Sheila’s apartment, listening to the hi-fi or viewing the summer re-runs on TV. On such occasions Sheila fed him.
    â€œI have an understanding with the frozen-food people,” she told Dane, paraphrasing the old joke. “They don’t design clothes and I don’t stand over a hot cookbook.”
    â€œDon’t apologize,” Dane said. “TV dinners constitute our only native art-form.”
    She laughed, throwing her head back. Viewing the cream-smooth neck, he felt a lecherous stir and wondered if he shouldn’t encourage it. After all, he had been squiring her around for some time now without a single pass. Wouldn’t she begin to wonder?
    The phone rang. Still laughing, Sheila answered it. “Oh, hi,” she said, in a remarkably different tone, moving back into the chair; and Dane sighed—the moment had gone. “How are you?… No, I’m fine … I couldn’t say.” She glanced at Dane, a mere flicker, and he said to himself: It’s my father. He got up and went to the window, and her voice sank. The reflection showed him a scowling and—it seemed to him—evil face.
    â€œI’d like a drink,” Sheila said from behind him. The phone call was over; comedy, recommence! “Something tall and ginny. Be my bartender?”
    He turned to her; they were face to—the image persisted, it seemed to him—evil face. She seemed faded, even coarse, the smile on her lips complacent. This is the way of an adulterous woman,/ She eateth and wipeth her mouth and sayeth,/ I have done no wrong … He felt sick at heart, and he was glad of the excuse to turn away and tinker with bottles and ice cubes.
    From time to time Sheila received other telephone calls—twice in her office while he was with her, twice more in her apartment—which, he assumed from her guarded tone, were also from his father.
    One night at the end of August they attended an old movie in an art theater on the Lower East Side; it was almost 3 A.M . when they emerged. In the car he put his arm around her. She slipped away. “I don’t believe in one-arm driving. Isn’t this safer?” She put her arm around him.
    In spite of himself, Dane felt a shiver. “Shall we stop somewhere? How about Ratner’s and a glass of borsht?”
    â€œThat pink soup with sour cream in it?” Sheila pursed her lips. “I think I’d prefer a nightcap. Let’s have it at my place.”
    â€œAll right.”
    It seemed natural. Entering the apartment building lobby was, as always when he was in Sheila’s company, something of a shock—knowing that his parents lay asleep overhead—but he had steeled himself by this time; he did not dwell on it. He did not dwell on much of anything these days.
    â€œCome in, Dane.”
    â€œI’m suddenly reminded,” Dane said, following Sheila into the penthouse apartment, “of the experience of a friend of mine. He accepted the offer of a tropical-looking beauty he met at a party to come up and have a nightcap in her apartment, and when they walked in, lo, there pacing the floor was an economy-size ocelot. Arthur swears it was as big as a leopard. Needless to say, all he got that night was a drink, and he spilled half of that on the rug.”
    â€œWell, my ocelot got the evening off,” Sheila said, “so don’t spill yours. Not on this rug. Handwoven in Jutland, I’ll have you