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lthough she only appears in a few books, she seems a intricate
 part of the EQ saga. According to  "There was a old woman"  he did not meet Nikki until the Potts murder. She's described as 'a small slim miss with nice red hair'.
Nikki wasn't her real name. She changed it on the advice of Ellery...First he asks her to change her identity to Susie McGargle from Kansas City. - She doesn't like the idea and then Ellery makes a second attempt (after a heroin from one of his books) “… N-i-k-k-i . The last name Dempsey didn't fit... Nikki Jones? Nikki Brown? Nikki Green? Nikki Keats? Nikki Lowell? Nikki Fowler? Yes it had to end with  -er. Parker. Farmer. Porter...Porter. Nikki Porter that's it!”
Her original name was Sheila Potts...and she's extremely wealthy (millionair). Despite this "handicap" she accepts Ellery's offer of becoming his secretary (with salary)...
She also stars in two Calendar-stories (1952) as EQ's secretary and companion. Her last appearance she made in the excellent Scarlet Letters  (1953) Here we learn that Nikki spent her childhood in Kansas City and differs in several aspects from the three other Nikki's.
As for her true origins it was Rand B.Lee who confirmed my suspicions when he stated:...'many of the femme fatale in the Queen books from the early Forties onward were modelled after my mother Kaye Brinker...'. In the last radioseries Kaye she did even played the role of Nikki.

he figure ‘Nikki’ appears several times in some or other form. Throughout the years the female co-star in the books had, more or less, Nikki qualities... As any Queen-addict will tell you this wasn't by far Ellery's only real love interest. Under pressure of the buying public Ellery had to get more and more romantically involved. This seemed especially important since they wanted to make it in Tinseltown.

Stella Godfrey from 'The Spanish Cape Mystery' has to be the prelude to the Nikki-figure.
In 1939 EQ returned to the short tale with a series of four stories, all with sports backgrounds. Each co stars Paula Paris, with whom EQ fell in love in The Four of Hearts (1938). She is a good character, but unfortunately she seems never to have returned after these works. A worldly woman who failed to become popular. The Wayne-Hutton tv-series did little to change this feeling. Probably they weren't meant to be as a couple (Paris-Queen) a feeling which was shared by the 'buying' public.
To my mind the best example of a Nikki look-a-like is found in Double,Double.  Rima Anderson, grossly neglected by many Queen-critics, stands as a 'Nikki Porterish' figure, a normal girl with normal interests (nature). Again Mr.Queen feeling toward Rima are very ambigu. It is a pity we only get to meet her once in the Queensaga.
Again in 'the Fourth Side of the Triangle'  secretary Judith 'Judy' Walsh has a, small, Nikki-lookalike-role. Also we shouldn’t forget Inspector Thumm's daughter, Patience from the Barnaby Ross books. Here the writer clearly intended Patience to take over the sleuthing from Drury Lane himself…

The reason for the small roles Nikki or indeed all other women got maybe simple enough... Ellery wasn't really a typical ladies man because the cousins themselves were probably not. They thought of their plots and stories to be a cerebral occupation which didn't leave much room for any affairs of the heart.
Everyone felt Nikki to be the ideal partner for unearthly Ellery. So it seems only logical that the mysterious Mrs.Queen  JJMcC mentioned had to be Nikki Porter. It’s less of a conundrum than the identity of e.g. Ellery Queen’s mother, which remains, till this day, a mystery.

s for the portrials we have several actresses both on radio,
tv or film to have played Nikki. In most of the later movies the influence of MGM's successful "Thin Man" series was obvious, as Ellery and Nikki engage in more comic squabbling than in sleuthing.  
In "Ellery Queen," a tv-show which ran for a season, the producers went back to the radio show, setting this series in 1947. Paula Paris made her entrance but not so Nikki Porter who, after all, had made the radioplays her natural surroundings. E.g. To the contrary in The Adventure of Colonel Niven's Memoirs Ellery's latest girlfriend, Jenny O'Brien worked with Ellery and spend the rest of the episode chasing down clues and suspects' true identities and motives. In The Adventure of the Eccentric Engineer Ellery's being shadowed by a young woman who wants help with a love story she's writing and EQ can't seem to shake her. Eventually he wants anything BUT to shake her, as once again, Ellery shows the 'lady's man' side of his personality.
Two actresses spring to mind when we have to name the most famous portrials of Nikki Porter...

arion Shockley (1911-1981)

The first actress to portray Nikki Porter (on radio), Ellery's secretary and low-key love interest. In "The Gum-Chewing Millionaire" she's a blonde professional typist who gets asked to work on Ellery's manuscripts. She then applies for the job of personal secretary. Shockley was  the Wampas baby star in 1932 and debuted in Broadway in Dear Old Darling (1936)... (click on picture for more)

argaret Lindsay (19 Sept 1910 – 9 May 1981)

Lindsay appeared in about 80 movies, usually as the "other woman," a debutante, socialite or best friend. She bounced between A and B pictures, working with such top leading men as Paul Muni, James Cagney, William Powell, Errol Flynn, and even the up-and-coming Humphrey Bogart. The only thing she lacked was star quality. Her B-movie experience included playing the female lead in seven Ellery Queen films. ... (click on picture for more)