The Fourth Side of the Triangle Read Online Free PDF Page A

club, like other exclusive clubs, whose principal virtue was exclusivity. And indeed Dane gazed up at his elderly cousin twice removed, Colonel Adolphus Phillipse, who sat, seemingly growing out of the floor, in his window, with the New York Times , doubtless growling over the dangerous radicalism of Senator Barry Goldwater.
    The Bentley drove off; Dane snapped around in time to see his father walking briskly up the worn front steps as if it were Tuesday or Friday, his club days. What was he going to do? Have a drink? Write a letter? Make a phone call?… Dane settled himself.
    At the other side of the window, separated from Colonel Phillipse, sat white-whiskered Dr. MacAnderson, immersed in one of the bearded tomes from which for fifty years he had been culling information to support his theory that “the mixed multitude” which accompanied the children of Israel out of Egypt was in fact the ancestral horde of the Gypsy nation. Colonel Phillipse slowly turned a page of his newspaper, intent on not missing a semicolon of the latest transgression of the Federal Reserve Bank. And Dane wondered how long his father was going to remain inside.
    He sat up quickly. The heat and the sluggard reveries of the two old men in the window had made him forget … He’s being very discreet , his mother had said. Taking special precautions .
    What if this stop at the club was a “special precaution”?
    Dane hustled the rented Ford around the corner and—sure enough!—there, at the rear entrance of the club, outside a public garage, sat the empty Bentley—Ramon had disappeared, apparently dismissed—and just coming out was Dane’s father.
    Ashton McKell was no longer wearing the light linen suit made for him by Sarcy, his London tailor, nor the shoes (fitted to his lasts) from Motherthwaite’s, also of London, nor the hat of jipijapa fibers specially woven for him in Ecuador. The rather startling clothes he was now wearing Dane had never seen before. He also carried a walking stick and a small black leather satchel, like a medical bag.
    Dane’s brow wrinkled. These could hardly constitute “special precautions”—a mere change of clothing. What was he up to?
    The elder McKell walked past the Bentley and without warning climbed into a black Continental limousine, took the wheel himself, and drove off.
    The limousine turned north, east, south, west … Dane lost track of direction in his awkward efforts to keep the other car in sight. The Continental had old-fashioned curtained windows, like a hearse, and the curtains were now drawn. What the devil?
    It poked its nose into Central Park and began describing parabolas, for what purpose Dane could not imagine. Not to throw off pursuers—it was going too slowly for that. Was he simply killing time?
    Suddenly the limousine pulled up and stopped, and as Dane drove by he saw his father get out of the driver’s seat and climb into the curtained rear. Dane parked around a nearby curve and waited with his engine running. He was baffled. Why had his father got into the rear of the car? There was no one else with him, Dane was almost positive. What could he be doing there?
    Suddenly the Continental drove past him, heading toward an exit. Dane followed.
    The limousine drove east and pulled up at a garage on a side street between Madison Avenue and Park. Dane slammed on his brakes, double-parking. He saw a garage mechanic come out with an orange ticket and reach into the Continental with it, nodding; he saw the driver of the Continental back out from behind the wheel and immediately hail a taxicab and jump in, to be driven off. The taxi had to stop at the corner of Park Avenue for a red light, and Dane pulled up directly behind it.
    He was doubly puzzled now. There was something strange-looking about the passenger in the cab, viewed from the rear. But what it was he could not at the moment put his finger on.
    The light changed, and