Lutetia’s delicate face was cameo-white, cameo-stone.

  “Mr. McKell, I’m going to have to ask you to come downtown for further questioning. You won’t need your car. We’ve got a police car at the side entrance.” So much was granted Ashton McKell’s position in society. The tumbril awaits… but at the tradesmen’s entrance.

  Ashton’s face was stone, too. “All right, Sergeant,” he said. He disengaged his hand gently. “Lutetia, I’m sorry,” he said in a very low voice.

  She did not reply, but her eyes flew open wide, very wide. “Son -” Dane moistened his dried-out lips. “Don’t worry, Dad. We’ll get you out of this right away.”

  “Take care of your mother, son. By the way, I forgot a handkerchief this morning. May I have yours?”

  On this absurd note Ashton McKell left between the two policemen.

  After the apartment door snicked shut with guillotine finality, Dane turned back to his mother. She was no longer there. He went to her bedroom and called out, but there was no response. He tried her door; it was locked. After a moment he went to the phone.

  Ashton McKell had a staff of six attorneys at his New York headquarters. Dane called none of them. Richard M. Heaton was the McKell family lawyer.

  “Almighty God!” said Richard M. Heaton.

  * * *

  Hanging up, Dane felt himself sweating in the air-conditioned apartment. He felt for his handkerchief and remembered that he had given it to his father. Abstractedly he went to his room and opened the handkerchief drawer of his old bureau.

  His hand remained in midair.

  His silver cigaret case lay on one of the piles of handkerchiefs.

  The silver case had been removed from the penthouse before the police got there. Who could have removed it? Obviously, the same one who had placed it here, in his bureau drawer… his father. That was why Ashton McKell had “forgotten” his own handkerchief (as if he ever forgot an essential article of clothing!) and borrowed Dane’s: to make Dane go to his room for a replacement and, as a consequence, to find the cigaret case.

  His father must have seen it in Sheila’s apartment, recognized it, pocketed it, and only now placed it in Dane’s bureau.

  What a bitter night it must have been for him, Dane thought. Finding the evidence of Dane’s presence on Sheila’s premises, he must have realized in a flash why Sheila was easing him out of her life. His own son…

  And the king went to the tower which was by the gate, and as he went, thus he said, My son, my son, Absalom. My son, my son, Absalom. Would God I died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son.

  Absalom had conspired against David, his father.

  Suddenly Dane saw Ashton McKell in a very different light from the clownish spectacle of the man who skulked in out-of-the-way places disguising himself in order to visit a woman he could not even embrace. In his blackest hour - an almost - criminal on the brink of scandal, his life in danger - his parting thought had been for the son who had betrayed him, his last directive an unspoken Don’t worry, son, I’ve retrieved your case from the penthouse, now they can’t place you on the scene.

  And Dane sat down in his childhood rocker and wept.

  * * *

  In a city in which murder is hamburgers by the dozen, the McKell arrest was caviar to the general. Not often did a case break in which the accused was tycoon, adviser to presidents, prince of commerce, son of a name who was son of a name untainted for generations, and all rolled into one man.

  If Lutetia McKell’s anguish at the wild invasion of her privacy by the press was not quite on a level with her horror at Ashton’s predicament, it was still powerful enough to dominate her household. She had caught a single glimpse of a single tabloid (left incautiously in the kitchen by old Margaret, whose open vice was the journalism of murder and rape); it was enough. All newspapers, even the New York Times, were banned from the premises; and when it became evident that the scavengers of the press, in particular the photographers, were laying siege to the building, Lutetia went into strictest seclusion, like a Hindu widow, and forbade the entrance of the clamoring world by so much as an uncurtained window.

  To reach his mother, Dane found himself having to follow a route he had not used since his boyhood, entering another building around the corner, descending to its basement, and emerging into the alley from which he could reach the apartment of John Leslie, the doorman, by a window.

  John or his wife would let him in, and then out by the basement door adjacent to the service elevator. It had been great fun when he was a youngster, but somehow the adventure had lost its savor. When it became necessary to confer with Lawyer Heaton, Lutetia reacted to Heaton’s suggestion that she and Dane visit his office as if he had invited her to take a sunbath naked on her roof.

  “I shall not set foot outside this apartment,” she said, in tears.

  “Nothing, nothing can make me!”

  So stately Mahomet came to the mountain; and indeed it was almost as traumatic an experience for Richard M. Heaton as it would have been for Lutetia. For Heaton was the very portrait of the trusted family lawyer - elderly, florid, with the dignity of a retired major-general, and as horror - struck by the notion of publicity as Lutetia herself. He gained entry to the McKell building in a slightly disheveled condition after running the gauntlet of newsmen, and from his distress he might have been stripped by their waving hands to his underclothing.

  “Foul beasts,” he muttered, accepting a glass of sherry and a biscuit from Lutetia in great agitation. He wore a resentful look, as if he had been tricked. It took Dane five minutes to calm him.

  “This is quite beyond my depth, Lutetia,” he said at last. “I have had no occasion to practice criminal law - haven’t 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.

  “Tell Mother what you told me, Mr. Heaton.”

  “Why 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 -”

  “Mr. Heaton,” said Dane politely, but firmly. He could see that his mother was holding herself together by sheer heroism.

  “I’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.”

  “Then 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.”

  “It’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.”

  “But Ashton wouldn’t do a thing like that,” Lutetia moaned. “Richard, he’s innocent. Only guilty men flee. It isn’t fair.”

  “I’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.

  “The trouble is what, Mr. Heaton?” Dane asked sharply.

  “Your father seems reluctant to battle it out legally. In fact, he’s all but forbidden me to.”

  “What!”

  “But why?” asked Lutetia blankly.

  “Why 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 was not as if he despised his wife and, in despising her, sought a more loving pair of arms, bought or offered gratis. Ashton did not despise Lutetia; he loved her. It was like loving a piece of fragile chinaware, the slightest jar to which would crack it. He had been responsible for cracking the delicate image, and he must be feeling the same sort of shame and guilt as if, in fact, he had been contemptuous of it.

  Dane went to see his father. The elder McKell looked like a hollow reproduction of himself - as if he had had his stuffing scooped out. Dane could hardly bear to look at him.

  Ashton asked, in tones softer than Dane could remember, “Son, how are you? How is your mother?”

  “We’re fine. The question is, Dad, how are you?”

  “This is all a dream, and I’ll soon wake up. But then I know I’m awake

  - that the past was the dream. It’s something like that, son.” They chatted awkwardly for a while, about Lutetia chiefly, how she was reacting to her overturned world. Finally Dane got around to the object of his visit. “Dad, I want you to tell me all about that night - what you did, where you went. In detail. Just as you told the police.”

  “If you want me to, Dane.” The elder man considered for a moment, sighing. “I got to the penthouse just before ten o’clock - the cab was held up by an accident on the highway, or it would have been sooner. The traffic from the airport isn’t very heavy at that hour.” About ten o’clock. It would have been mere minutes after he himself had left her alive in the penthouse.

  “I didn’t stay long. She was terribly upset. By what she wouldn’t say.” Dane bent over the pad, on which he was taking notes, to cover his wince. “How long were you there, Dad? As exactly as you can recall.”

  “She asked me to leave almost at once, so I did. I couldn’t have been there more than several minutes. I’d say I left at 10:03 at the latest.”

  “Where did you go from there?”

  Ashton said quietly, “I was rather upset myself. I walked.”

  “Where? For how long?” And why didn’t I ask him why he was upset?

  Dane thought. Because I know, that’s why…

  “I just don’t remember. It couldn’t have been too long, I suppose. I do remember being in a bar -”

  “What bar?”

  “I don’t know. I had a drink and talked to the bartender, I remember that.”

  “You’re sure you don’t know where the bar is?”

  “Not even approximately, although for some reason First Avenue sticks in my head. But I can’t honestly say it was there. Somewhere in the Sixties - I think. A side street, I seem to recall that, anyway. I was simply not paying any attention to things like that.” A ghost of a smile touched the rocky face. “I certainly wish now that I had.”

  “And you didn’t notice the name of the bar?”

  “Or I’ve forgotten. You know, a lot of those little places have no names. Just Bar.”

  “Have you an idea how long you were in there?”

  “Quite a while. More than a few minutes. I do remember leaving the place and walking some more. Finally I took a cab -”

  “I don’t suppose you remember the cabbie’s name or number.”

  “God, no. Or when, or where, or what street I got out at. I remember getting out some blocks short of home because I suddenly wanted air. I walked the rest of the way.”

  “And you can’t even recall what time it was when you got home?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest idea, Dane.” Dane knew that his mother did not know, either, for she had told him, “I didn’t know your father was home until early morning, when I woke up.”

  “I’m afraid, son, the information isn’t of any use.” Dane wanted to talk about his father’s having replaced the silver cigaret case; he had even thought of bringing up the whole business of his relationship with Sheila Grey; but just then the turnkey terminated his visit. The street was steaming with gasoline fumes and oily vapors, but the air seemed sweetly pure after the jail.

  * * *

  He went over to police headquarters and got in to see the man in charge of several phases of the Grey investigation, a birdy little man with a gray brush mustache, an inspector named Queen.

  “Take a load off your feet, Mr. McKell,” said Inspector Queen, nodding toward a chair of rivuleted black leather, “and listen to the gospel. We have to go by the weight of the circumstantial evidence. The weight of the circumstantial evidence is against your father. Ballistics says the bullet that killed her came from the gun your father admits belongs to him - not that it’s important whether he admits it or not; his ownership is a matter of record. He was admittedly on the scene within minutes of the exact moment of the shooting as recorded by the desk sergeant of the 17th Precinct, from hearing the shot over the phone. And while the State doesn’t have to prove motive, it comes in handy, and your father’s motive sticks in the old slot they all stick in when a man is having an affair with a woman not his wife - sorry I have to be blunt, but there it is. And all he offers us in rebuttal is this yarn about having been in a bar. But what bar, where, when, he can’t tell us.

  Dane wondered what this little briar of an inspector would say if he were to be told about the disguise and the impotence. Probably, he thought, boot me out of here for telling bad jokes so early in the day.

  “Have you tried to check out his story, Inspector?” The Inspector said explosively, “People give me a pain. I forgive you because it’s your father who’s involved, and people don’t think straight when they’re upset. My dear Mr. McKell, you don’t suppose we collect bonuses for every indictment the grand jury brings in, do you? Like fox tails in chicken country? Of course we checked it out. Or tried our damnedest to. You know how many bars there are in every square mile of Manhattan Island? I’ve got a pile of reports here that make my feet ache just looking at ‘em.

  “We checked every last bar in the neighborhood your father mentioned, and not just in the Sixties, or on First Avenue, either. We hit that whole midtown East Side area in a saturation investigation. Nobody

  - but nobody - remembers having seen him that night; and our men carried photographs. That night or any other night, I might add. So what do you suggest we do? I’m sorry, Mr. McKell, but my advice to you is to get your father the best trial lawyers money can hire.” Dane McKell did not know what the police could or could not do, but he knew what he had to do. He had to find that bar. He went back to his parents’ home, fished in the family album and, armed with a photograph of his father, set out in his MG.

  He drove from street to street. He was operating on the theory that the police had interpreted “bar” too narrowly; besides, perhaps his father was in confusion or error as to the exact location of the place. The police having covered bars on the East Side midtown, he would widely extend the hunt.

  He visited bars, grills, restaurants, oyster houses, steak joints, even hotels; the dark and the light, the new and old and ageless places. “Have you ever seen this man? Are you sure? He might have had a drink in here on the night of September 14th, between ten p.m. and midnight.” In one dim bistro the inevitable happened.

  “Sure,” the barkeep said. Dane perked up. “He’s here right now.

  Jerry? Here’s a guy looking for you.” Jerry did bear a resemblance to Ashton McKell, if Ashton McKell had spent his days boozing in a fourth-rate grogshop and shaved every third day.

  Dane stumbled over another trail in a place on Second Avenue, in the upper 60s. The barman took one look at Ashton McKell’s photo and grunted, “Who is this guy, everybody’s rich uncle?” Dane was tired. “What do you mean?”

  The girl.

  “What girl?”

  “Ain’t she working with you? First she comes in, then you. Nice-looking broad. She was in here a few minutes ago. Nah, I never seen this old duck, and that’s what I told her, too.”

  So a girl was combing the bars with a picture of his father, too! Could she be a policewoman? Dane did not think so. It seemed scarcely the sort of work to which a policewoman would be assigned; besides, that phase of the police investigation had been covered. Then who was she? Could there have been two other women in his father’s life? By now Dane did not care if there had been a haremful. His own meddling had helped bring his father to a human kennel, his life in jeopardy. Only get him out of there! Nothing else mattered any longer.

  The mystery of the girl was solved prosaically enough. Dane had come out of a pink-and-white barroom occupied by slender men in form-fitting clothing and had entered a white-and-pink barroom occupied by women who used too much eye make-up and who looked up quickly as he came in. The bartender was at the other end of the bar, half blocked out by the figure of a woman who was showing him something.