The case went to the jury at a quarter past eleven on December 23rd, after a brief charge by Judge Hershkowitz (“You are to consider only the question: Did the defendant on the night of September 14th, at 10:23 P.M., fire the shot that killed Sheila Grey? If the defendant did, she is guilty of murder as charged in the indictment. If you find that she did not fire the shot, then you must find that she is not guilty of the crime as charged in the indictment. In making your decision, you must consider the testimony you have heard in this courtroom concerning the accused’s telephone conversation at about that same time. If you hold that testimony to be relevant, you must then consider the matter of timing. This court believes the matter of timing in this case to be all-important...”). At half-past noon the jury had reached a verdict, when the defense attorney and the district attorney had not yet returned from their lunch (the judge, an old hand, had lunch sent into his chambers). Barton and De Angelus, notified, scurried back to the courtroom with their lunches half consumed.
The headline on the tabloid that was first to print the news, FREE LU, was not — as some English-speaking foreigner might have interpreted — an imperative; it was a statement of what the jury had in fact done.
Dane’s mother was acquitted, as her husband before her had been.
Judge Hershkowitz said to the jury, “Your verdict is justified by the evidence... Two indictments have now been returned for the murder of Sheila Grey, and in each case the jury, having seen and heard the evidence, has refused to convict. The killer is, accordingly, still at large. We do not wish an innocent person to be pronounced guilty; at the same time we do not wish a guilty person to escape unpunished.”
This last was taken — accurately — by police, district attorney’s office, and press alike as a juridical nudge to get on with the job, and this time do it right.
The McKells were too overjoyed to weigh nuances. Ashton exclaimed, “What a wonderful Christmas present. We’ll all be together on the Twenty-fifth, and without this nightmare hanging over us. Mr. Barton, how can I express my gratitude?”
The lawyer shook his head. “Don’t thank me, thank that fellow Lattimoore and his uncashed $500 check. All I did was follow through. With that evidence, any kid fresh out of law school could have earned an acquittal.”
The only one present who was not happily jabbering away was Lutetia herself. When Dane asked her why she was so preoccupied, his mother said, “It will always be on my conscience.”
“What, Mother?”
“Replacing the blank cartridges in that revolver with live ones. Why did I do it? She would still be alive—”
“Stop it, Mother. This instant.”
It took them a long time to restore her spirits. At one point Dane got the impression that she would have been content to give herself up and stand trial all over again. As he said to his father, “Thank God for the rule of double jeopardy!”
Henry Calder Barton did not leave the courtroom with them. He went over to talk to the district attorney, who was talking to Inspector Queen.
“As His Honor would say, Henry, mazel tov,” De Angelus said sourly.
“What are you congratulating him for?” snarled old man Queen. “A baby could have walked off with this case. Soap!”
Barton grinned. “I couldn’t agree more, Inspector. Uh... Mr. D.A. I know this isn’t the best time in the world to ask if you’ll let my client, that Gogarty boy, cop a plea for manslaughter. But it would save everybody time and money. What do you say?”
De Angelus grunted, “It sure as hell isn’t. Do you realize that lightning has struck me twice in this Grey murder? With Dick Queen here standing under the same tree?”
“Why take it out on Gogarty?”
“Talk to me about it tomorrow. Today I wouldn’t make bargains with my own mother.”
“Why, Teddy, you wouldn’t be disgruntled because two innocent people have been found not guilty, would you?”
“Look, Henry, I’m unhappy, Inspector Queen’s unhappy, everybody’s unhappy except you and the McKells. So let’s leave it at Merry Christmas, huh?”
Ellery was unhappy, too, the impending Christmas never having seemed less Merry. For one thing, he would have to spend it in the hospital; and the half-promise of his doctor that he might be home and hobbling around before the New Year carried exactly as much conviction as half-promises usually do.
He was now mobile to the extent of wheeling himself about the corridors, so he helped the ravishing blond nurse decorate the Christmas tree on their floor, and he almost enjoyed the Swedish julotta celebration afterward. But the only real pleasure he took was in the joy of the McKell family.
His unhappiness had a broader base, a disdainful disappointment in himself. Armchair detective! What satisfaction he had taken in his role in the case of Ashton McKell — Phase One, as he had come to think of it — was erased by his nonexistent role in Phase Two. By himself he had come up with nothing whatever to help Lutetia. The letter from The Princess Soap Company, from which her subsequent acquittal stemmed, had simply turned up one morning through the courtesy of the ineffable Lattimoore. Its import would have been obvious to a rookie policeman.
And the killer of Sheila Grey was still at large, as Judge Hershkowitz had pointed out, and the great man hadn’t a clue in his head that might be called promising.
Oh, well, Ellery thought with a sigh. At least the McKells’ troubles are over.
The McKells’ troubles were over for exactly one weekend. Father, mother, and son had had a pleasant, if not joyous, Christmas together. They had attended services at the great unfinished cathedral on Christmas Eve, mingling unnoticed with the crowds of worshipers. In the morning they attended services at a chapel in a poor neighborhood whose congregation was almost entirely foreign-born and whose “language” newspaper had run no photograph of the McKell family. The remainder of Christmas Day they spent quietly at home. They had exchanged gifts, listened to the Missa Solemnis on the hi-fi, read the newspapers.
On Monday, Lutetia expressed a desire to see the ocean. Ramon had been given the day off, for Ashton was at home — the McKell enterprises, like most companies, were keeping Monday as part of the holiday — so Dane drove his parents down to Long Beach, where for almost two hours they strolled beside the gray Atlantic sweeping endlessly in from Europe. The walk made them hungry, and when they returned home Lutetia took pleasure in preparing a hearty supper of soup and sirloin steak with her own hands. Ashton read aloud from Matthew, they listened to the enchanting music of Buxtehude’s Missa Brevis and the majestic Mendelssohn Elijah sung ineffably by the Huddersfield Choral Society, and then they called it a day.
Dane was still eating breakfast as well as dining with his parents; he supposed this would stop when he could slip his life back into its independent groove once more, an opportunity he was on the lookout for these days. He was at breakfast in his parents’ apartment, then, two days after Christmas, when Ramon — waiting to drive Ashton to his office — brought in the mail containing the bulky brown envelope.
Ashton, shuffling through the mail, handed the brown envelope to Dane. It was a long one made of kraft paper. Dane slit it open, removed its contents, glanced over them — and the cup he set down in the saucer rattled.
“Dane?” said Lutetia. “Is something the matter?”
He continued to read; his complexion had turned gluey.
“Son, what is it?” Ashton asked.
Dane muttered, “Now it will have to come out.”