IN WHICH MORE HATS GROW
“Sit down, Tim—have a cup of coffee?”
Timothy Cronin, a keen-eyed man of medium height thatched plentifully
with fire-red hair, seated himself in one of the Queens’ comfortable
chairs and accepted the Inspector’s invitation in some embarrassment.
It was Friday morning and the Inspector and Ellery, garbed romantically
in colorful dressing-gowns, were in high spirits. They had retired the
night before at an uncommonly early hour—for them; they had slept the
sleep of the just; now Djuna had a pot of steaming coffee, of a variety
which he blended himself, ready on the table; and indubitably all
seemed right with the world.
Cronin had stalked into the cheery Queen quarters at an ungodly
hour—disheveled, morose and unashamedly cursing. Not even the mild
protests of the Inspector were able to stem the tide of profanity which
streamed from his lips; and as for Ellery, he listened to the lawyer’s
language with an air of grave enjoyment, as an amateur harkens to a
professional.
Then Cronin awoke to his environment, and blushed, and was invited to
sit down, and stared at the unbending back of Djuna as that nimble
man-of-affairs busied himself with the light appurtenances of the
morning meal.
“I don’t suppose you’re in a mood to apologize for your shocking
language, Tim Cronin, me lad,” chided the Inspector, folding his hands
Buddha-like over his stomach. “Do I have to inquire the reason for
the bad temper?”
“Not much, you don’t,” growled Cronin, shifting his feet savagely on
the rug. “You ought to be able to guess. I’m up against a blank wall in
the matter of Field’s papers. Blast his black soul!”
“It’s blasted, Tim—it’s blasted, never fear,” said Queen sorrowfully.
“Poor Field is probably roasting his toes over a sizzling little
coal-fire in Hell just now—and chortling to himself over your
profanity. Exactly what is the situation—how do things stand?”
Cronin grasped the cup Djuna had set before him and drained its
scalding contents in a gulp. “Stand?” he cried, banging down the
cup. “They don’t stand—they’re nil, nit, not! By Christopher, if I
don’t get my hands on some documentary evidence soon I’ll go batty!
Why, Inspector—Stoates and I ransacked that swell office of Field’s
until I don’t think there’s a rat in the walls who dares show his
head outside a ten-foot hole—and there’s nothing. Nothing! Man—it’s
inconceivable. I’d stake my reputation that somewhere—the Lord alone
knows where—Field’s papers are hidden, just begging somebody to come
along and carry them away.”
“You seem possessed of a phobia on the subject of hidden papers,
Cronin,” remarked Ellery mildly. “One would think we are living in the
days of Charles the First. There’s no such thing as hidden papers. You
merely have to know where to look.”
Cronin grinned impertinently. “That’s very good of you, Mr. Queen.
Suppose you suggest the place Mr. Monte Field selected to hide _his_
papers.”
Ellery lit a cigarette. “All right. I accept the challenge to
combat.... You say—and I don’t doubt your word in the least—that the
documents you suppose to be in existence are not in Field’s office....
By the way, what makes you so sure that Field kept papers which would
incriminate him in this vast clique of gangsters you told us
about?”
“He must have,” retorted Cronin. “Queer logic, but it works....
My information absolutely establishes the fact that Field had
correspondence and written plans connecting him with men higher up
in gangdom whom we’re constantly trying to ‘get’ and whom we haven’t
been able to touch so far. You’ll have to take my word for it; it’s
too complicated a story to go into here. But you mark my words, Mr.
Queen—Field had papers that he couldn’t afford to destroy. Those are
the papers I’m looking for.”
“Granted,” said Ellery in a rhetorical tone. “I merely wished to make
certain of the facts. Let me repeat, then, these papers are not in his
office. We must therefore look for them farther afield. For example,
they might be secreted in a safety-deposit vault.”
“But, El,” objected the Inspector, who had listened to the interplay
between Cronin and Ellery in amusement, “didn’t I tell you this morning
that Thomas had run that lead to earth? Field did not have a box in a
safety-deposit vault. That is established. He had no general delivery
or private post-office box either—under his real name or any other name.
“Thomas has also investigated Field’s club affiliations and discovered
that the lawyer had no residence, permanent or temporary, besides the
flat on 75th Street. Furthermore, in all Thomas’s scouting around,
he found not the slightest indication of a possible hiding-place. He
thought that Field might have left the papers in a parcel or bag in the
keeping of a shopkeeper, or something of the sort. But there wasn’t a
trace.... Velie’s a good man in these matters, Ellery. You can bet your
bottom dollar that hypothesis of yours is false.”
“I was making a point for Cronin’s benefit,” retorted Ellery. He
spread his fingers on the table elaborately and winked. “You see, we
must narrow the field of search to the point where we can definitely
say: ‘It must be here.’ The office, the safety-deposit vault, the
post-office boxes have been ruled out. Yet we know that Field could
not afford to keep these documents in a place difficult of access.
I cannot vouch for the papers _you’re_ seeking, Cronin; but it’s
different with the papers _we’re_ seeking. No; Field had them somewhere
near at hand.... And, to go a step further, it’s reasonable to assume
that he would have kept all his important secret papers in the same
hiding-place.”
Cronin scratched his head and nodded.
“We shall now apply the elementary precepts, gentlemen.” Ellery paused
as if to emphasize his next statement. “Since we have narrowed our area
of inquiry to the exclusion of all possible hiding-places save one—the
papers must be in that one hiding-place.... Nothing to that.”
“Now that I pause to consider,” interpolated the Inspector, his good
humor suddenly dissipated into gloom, “perhaps we weren’t as careful in
that place as we might have been.”
“I’m as certain we’re on the right track,” said Ellery firmly, “as that
to-day is Friday and there will be fish suppers in thirty million homes
to-night.”
Cronin was looking puzzled. “I don’t quite get it, Mr. Queen. What do
you mean when you say there’s only one possible hiding-place left?”
“Field’s apartment, Cronin,” replied Ellery imperturbably. “The papers
are there.”
“But I was discussing the case with the D.A. only yesterday,” objected
Cronin, “and he said you’d already ransacked Field’s apartment and
found nothing.”
“True—true enough,” said Ellery. “We searched Field’s apartment
and found nothing. The trouble was, Cronin, that we didn’t look in the
right place.”
“Well, by ginger, if you know now, let’s get a move on!” cried Cronin,
springing from his chair.
The Inspector tapped the red-haired man’s knee gently and pointed to
the seat. “Sit down, Tim,” he advised. “Ellery is merely indulging in
his favorite game of ratiocination. He doesn’t know where the papers
are any more than you do. He’s guessing.... In detective literature,”
he added with a sad smile, “they call it the ‘art of deduction.’”
“I should say,” murmured Ellery, emitting a cloud of smoke, “that I am
being challenged once more. Nevertheless, although I haven’t been back
to Field’s rooms I intend, with Inspector Queen’s kind permission, to
return there and find the slippery documents.”
“In the matter of these papers—” began the old man, when he was
interrupted by the doorbell ringing. Djuna admitted Sergeant Velie, who
was accompanied by a small, furtive young man so ill at ease as to be
trembling. The Inspector sprang to his feet and intercepted them before
they could enter the living-room. Cronin stared as Queen said, “This
the fellow, Thomas?” and the big detective answered with grim levity,
“Large as life, Inspector.”
“Think you could burgle an apartment without being caught, do you?”
inquired the Inspector genially, taking the newcomer by the arm.
“You’re just the man I want.”
The furtive young man seemed overcome by a species of terrified palsy.
“Say, Inspector, yer not takin’ me fer a ride, are ya?” he stammered.
The Inspector smiled reassuringly and led him out into the foyer. They
held a whispered and one-sided conversation, with the stranger grunting
assents at every second word uttered by the old man. Cronin and Ellery
in the living-room caught the flash of a small sheet of paper as
it passed from the Inspector’s hand into the clutching paw of the
young man.
Queen returned, stepping spryly. “All right, Thomas. You take care
of the other arrangements and see that our friend here gets into no
trouble.... Now, gentlemen—”
Velie made his adieu monosyllabically and led the frightened stranger
from the apartment.
The Inspector sat down. “Before we go over to Field’s rooms, boys,” he
said thoughtfully, “I want to make certain things plain. In the first
place, from what Benjamin Morgan has told us, Field’s business was law
but his great source of income—blackmail. Did you know that, Tim? Monte
Field sucked dozens of prominent men dry, in all likelihood to the tune
of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, Tim, we’re convinced
that the motive behind Field’s murder was connected with this phase of
his under-cover activities. There is no doubt but that he was killed by
somebody who was being taken in for huge sums of hush-money and could
stand the gaff no longer.
“You know as well as I, Tim, that blackmail depends largely for
its ugly life on the possession of incriminating documents by the
blackmailer. That’s why we’re so sure that there are hidden papers
about somewhere—and Ellery here maintains that they’re in Field’s
rooms. Well, we’ll see. If eventually we find those papers, the
documents you’ve been hunting so long will probably come to light also,
as Ellery pointed out a moment ago.”
He paused reflectively. “I can’t tell you, Tim, how badly I want to get
my hands on those confounded documents of Field’s. They mean a good
deal to me. They’d clear up a lot of questions about which we’re still
in the dark....”
“Well, then, let’s get going!” cried Cronin, leaping from his chair.
“Do you realize, Inspector, that I’ve worked for years on Field’s tail
for this one purpose? It will be the happiest day of my life....
Inspector—come on!”
Neither Ellery nor his father, however, seemed to be in haste.
They retired to the bedroom to dress while Cronin fretted in the
living-room. If Cronin had not been so preoccupied with his own
thoughts he would have noticed that the light spirits which had
suffused the Queens when he arrived were now scattered into black
gloom. The Inspector particularly seemed out of sorts, irritable and
for once slow to push the investigation into an inevitable channel.
Eventually the Queens appeared fully dressed. The three men descended
to the street. As they climbed into a taxicab Ellery sighed.
“Afraid you’re going to be shown up, son?” muttered the old man, his
nose buried in the folds of his topcoat.
“I’m not thinking of that,” returned Ellery. “It’s something else....
The papers will be found, never fear.”
“I hope to Christmas you’re right!” breathed Cronin fervently, and it
was the last word spoken until the taxicab ground to a stop before the
lofty apartment-house on 75th Street.
The three men took the elevator to the fourth floor and stepped out
into the quiet corridor. The Inspector peered about quickly, then
punched the doorbell of the Field apartment. There was no answer,
although they could hear the vague rustling of someone behind the door.
Suddenly it swished open to reveal a red-faced policeman whose hand
hovered uneasily in the region of his hip-pocket.
“Don’t be scared, man—we won’t bite you!” growled the Inspector, who
was completely out of temper for no reason that Cronin, nervous and
springy as a racing-colt, could fathom.
The uniformed man saluted. “Didn’t know but it might be someone
snoopin’ around, Inspector,” he said feebly.
The three men walked into the foyer, the slim, white hand of the old
man pushing the door violently shut.
“Anything been happening around here?” snapped Queen, striding to the
entrance to the living-room and looking inside.
“Not a thing, sir,” said the policeman. “I’m on four-hour shifts with
Cassidy as relief and once in a while Detective Ritter drops in to see
if everything is all right.”
“Oh, he does, does he?” The old man turned back. “Anybody try to get
into the place?”
“Not while I was here, Inspector—nor Cassidy neither,” responded the
policeman nervously. “And we’ve been alternating ever since Tuesday
morning. There hasn’t been a soul near these rooms except Ritter.”
“Park out here in the foyer for the next couple of hours, officer,”
commanded the Inspector. “Get yourself a chair and take a snooze if you
want to—but if anybody should start monkeying with the door tip us off
pronto.”
The policeman dragged a chair from the living-room into the foyer,
sat down with his back against the front door, folded his arms and
unashamedly closed his eyes.
The three men took in the scene with gloomy eyes. The foyer was small
but crowded with oddments of furniture and decoration. A bookcase
filled with unused-appearing volumes; a small table on which perched a
“modernistic” lamp and some carved ivory ash-trays; two Empire chairs;
a peculiar piece of furniture which seemed half sideboard and half
secretary; and a number of cushions and rugs were scattered about. The
Inspector stood regarding this melange wryly.
“Here, son—I guess the best way for us to tackle the search is for the
three of us to go through everything piece by piece, one checking
up on the other. I’m not very hopeful about it, I’ll tell you that.”
“The gentleman of the Wailing Wall,” groaned Ellery. “Grief is writ
fine and large on his noble visage. You and I, Cronin—we’re not such
pessimists, are we?”
Cronin growled, “I’d say—less talk and more action, with all the
respect in the world for these little family ructions.”
Ellery stared at him with admiration. “You’re almost insectivorous in
your determination, man. More like an army-ant than a human being. And
poor Field’s lying in the morgue, too.... _Allons, enfants_!”
They set to work under the nodding head of the policeman. They worked
silently for the most part. Ellery’s face reflected a calm expectancy;
the Inspector’s a doleful irritation; Cronin’s a savage indomitability.
Book after book was extracted from the case and carefully
inspected—leaves shaken out—covers examined minutely—backboards pinched
and pierced. There were over two hundred books and the thorough search
took a long time. Ellery, after a period of activity, seemed inclined
to allow his father and Cronin to do the heavier work of inspection
while he devoted his attention more and more to the titles of the
volumes. At one point he uttered a delighted exclamation and held
up to the light a thin, cheaply bound book. Cronin leaped forward
immediately, his eyes blazing. The Inspector looked up with a flicker
of interest. But Ellery had merely discovered another volume on
handwriting analysis.
The old man stared at his son in silent curiosity, his lips puckered
thoughtfully. Cronin turned back to the bookcase with a groan. Ellery,
however, riffling the pages rapidly, cried out again. The two men
craned over his shoulder. On the margins of several pages were some
penciled notations. The words spelled names: “Henry Jones,” “John
Smith,” “George Brown.” They were repeated many times on the margins
of the page, as if the writer were practicing different styles of
penmanship.
“Didn’t Field have the most adolescent yen for scribbling?” asked
Ellery, staring fascinatedly at the penciled names.
“As usual you have something up your sleeve, my son,” remarked the
Inspector wearily. “I see what you mean, but I don’t see that it helps
us any. Except for—By jinks, that’s an idea!”
He bent forward and attacked the search once more, his body vibrant
with fresh interest. Ellery, smiling, joined him. Cronin stared
uncomprehendingly at both.
“Suppose you let me in on this thing, folks,” he said in an aggrieved
voice.
The Inspector straightened up. “Ellery’s hit on something that, if
it’s true, is a bit of luck for us and reveals still another sidelight
on Field’s character. The black-hearted rascal! See here, Tim—if a
man’s an inveterate blackmailer and you find continual evidence that
he has been practicing handwriting from textbooks on the subject, what
conclusion would you draw?”
“You mean that he’s a forger, too?” frowned Cronin. “I never suspected
that in spite of all these years of hounding him.”
“Not merely a forger, Cronin,” laughed Ellery. “I don’t think you
will find Monte Field has penned somebody else’s name to a check, or
anything of that sort. He was too wily a bird to make such a grievous
error. What he probably did do was secure original and incriminating
documents referring to a certain individual, make copies of them and
sell the _copies_ back to the owner, retaining the originals for
further use!”
“And in that case, Tim,” added the Inspector portentuously, “if we
find this gold mine of papers somewhere about—which I greatly
doubt—we’ll also find, as like as not, the original or originals of the
papers for which Monte Field was murdered!”
The red-haired Assistant District Attorney pulled a long face at his
two companions. “Seems like a lot of ‘if’s,’” he said finally, shaking
his head.
They resumed the search in growing silence.
Nothing was concealed in the foyer. After an hour of steady,
back-breaking work they were forced reluctantly to that conclusion.
Not a square inch was left unexamined. The interior of the lamp and of
the bookcase; the slender, thin-topped table; the secretary, inside
and outside; the cushions; even the walls were tapped carefully by
the Inspector, who by now was aroused to a high pitch of excitement,
suppressed but remarkable in his tight lips and color-touched cheeks.
They attacked the living-room. Their first port-of-call was the big
clothes-closet inside the room directly off the foyer. Again the
Inspector and Ellery went through the topcoats, overcoats and capes
hanging on the rack. Nothing. On the shelf above were the four hats
they had examined on Tuesday morning: the old Panama, the derby and the
two fedoras. Still nothing. Cronin bumped down on his knees to peer
savagely into the darker recesses of the closet, tapping the wall,
searching for signs of tampered woodwork. And still nothing. With the
aid of a chair the Inspector poked into the corners of the area above
the shelf. He climbed down, shaking his head.
“Forget the closet, boys,” he muttered. They descended upon the room
proper.
The large carved desk which Hagstrom and Piggott had rifled three days
before invited their scrutiny. Inside was the pile of papers, canceled
bills and letters they had offered for the old man’s inspection. Old
Queen actually peered through these torn and ragged sheets as if they
might conceal messages in invisible ink. He shrugged his shoulders
and threw them down.
“Darned if I’m not growing romantic in my old age,” he growled. “The
influence of a fiction-writing rascal of a son.”
He picked up the miscellaneous articles he himself had found on Tuesday
in the pockets of the closet coats. Ellery was scowling now; Cronin
was beginning to wear a forlorn, philosophical expression; the old man
shuffled abstractedly among the keys, old letters, wallets and then
turned away.
“Nothing in the desk,” he announced wearily. “I doubt if that clever
limb of Satan would have selected anything as obvious as a desk for a
hiding-place.”
“He would if he’d read his Edgar Allan Poe,” murmured Ellery. “Let’s
get on. Sure there is no secret drawer here?” he asked Cronin. The red
head was shaken sadly but emphatically.
They probed and poked about in the furniture, under the carpets and
lamps, in book-ends, curtain-rods. With each successive failure the
apparent hopelessness of the search was reflected in their faces.
When they had finished with the living-room it looked as if it had
innocently fallen into the path of a hurricane—a bare and comfortless
satisfaction.
“Nothing left but the bedroom, kitchenette and lavatory,” said the
Inspector to Cronin; and the three men went into the room which Mrs.
Angela Russo had occupied Monday night.
Field’s bedroom was distinctly feminine in its accoutrements—a
characteristic which Ellery ascribed to the influence of the charming
Greenwich Villager. Again they scoured the premises, not an inch
of space eluding their vigilant eyes and questing hands; and again
there seemed nothing to do but admit failure. They took apart the
bedding and examined the spring of the bed; they put it together
again and attacked the clothes-closet. Every suit was mauled and
crushed by their insistent fingers—bathrobes, dressing-gowns, shoes,
cravats. Cronin half-heartedly repeated his examination of the walls
and moldings. They lifted rugs and picked up chairs; shook out the
pages of the telephone book in the bedside telephone-table. The
Inspector even lifted the metal disk which fitted around the steam-pipe
at the floor, because it was loose and seemed to present possibilities.
From the bedroom they went into the kitchenette. It was so crowded with
kitchen furnishings that they could barely move about. A large cabinet
was rifled; Cronin’s exasperated fingers dipped angrily into the flour-
and sugar-bins. The stove, the dish-closet, the pan-closet—even the
single marble washtub in a corner—was methodically gone over. On the
floor to one side stood the half-empty case of liquor bottles. Cronin
cast longing glances in this direction, only to look guiltily away as
the Inspector glared at him.
“And now—the bathroom,” murmured Ellery. In an ominous silence they
trooped into the tiled lavatory. Three minutes later they came out,
still silently, and went into the living-room where they disposed
themselves in chairs. The Inspector drew out his snuff-box and took a
vicious pinch; Cronin and Ellery lit cigarettes.
“I should say, my son,” said the Inspector in sepulchral tones after
a painful interval broken only by the snores of the policeman in the
foyer, “I should say that the deductive method which has brought fame
and fortune to Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his legions has gone awry. Mind
you, I’m not scolding....” But he slouched into the fastnesses of the
chair.
Ellery stroked his smooth jaw with nervous fingers. “I seem to have
made something of an ass of myself,” he confessed. “And yet those
papers are here somewhere. Isn’t that a silly notion to have? But logic
bears me out. When ten is the whole and two plus three plus four are
discarded, only one is left.... Pardon me for being old-fashioned. I
insist the papers are here.”
Cronin grunted and expelled a huge mouthful of smoke.
“Your objection sustained,” murmured Ellery, leaning back. “Let’s go
over the ground again. No, no!” he explained hastily, as Cronin’s face
lengthened in dismay—“I mean orally.... Mr. Field’s apartment consists
of a foyer, a living-room, a kitchenette, a bedroom and a lavatory.
We have fruitlessly examined a foyer, a living-room, a kitchenette, a
bedroom and a lavatory. Euclid would regretfully force a conclusion
here....” He mused. “How have we examined these rooms?” he asked
suddenly. “We have gone over the obvious things, pulled the obvious
things to pieces. Furniture, lamps, carpets—I repeat, the obvious
things. And we have tapped floors, walls and molding. It would seem
that nothing has escaped the search....”
He stopped, his eyes brightening. The Inspector threw off his look of
fatigue at once. From experience he was aware that Ellery rarely grew
excited over inconsequential things.
“And yet,” said Ellery slowly, gazing in fascination at his
father’s face, “by the Golden Roofs of Seneca, we’ve overlooked
something—actually overlooked something!”
“What!” growled Cronin. “You’re kidding.”
“Oh, but I’m not,” chuckled Ellery, lounging to his feet. “We
have examined floors and we have examined walls, but have we
examined—ceilings?”
He shot the word forth theatrically while the two men stared at him in
amazement.
“Here, what are you driving at, Ellery?” asked his father, frowning.
Ellery briskly crushed his cigarette in an ash-tray. “Just
this,” he said. “Pure reasoning has it that when you have exhausted
every possibility but one in a given equation that one, no matter
how improbable, no matter how ridiculous it may seem in the
postulation—_must be the correct one_.... A theorem analogous to the
one by which I concluded that the papers were in this apartment.”
“But, Mr. Queen, for the love of Pete—ceilings!” exploded Cronin, while
the Inspector looked guiltily at the living-room ceiling. Ellery caught
the look and laughed, shaking his head.
[Illustration: Bedroom with items indicated by capital letters]
A—Ceiling
B—Door to Living Room
C—Mirror
D—Dressing Table
E—Damask curtains around bed, from ceiling to floor, concealing
shaded portion which represents panel containing hats.
“I’m not suggesting that we call in a plasterer to maul these lovely
middle-class ceilings,” he said. “Because I have the answer already.
What is it in these rooms somewhere that is on the ceiling?”
“The chandeliers,” muttered Cronin doubtfully, gazing upward at the
heavily bronzed fixture above their heads.
“By jinks—the canopy over the bed!” shouted the Inspector. He
jumped to his feet and ran into the bedroom. Cronin pounded hard after
him, Ellery sauntering interestedly behind.
They stopped at the foot of the bed and stared up at the canopy. Unlike
the conventional canopies of American style, this florid ornament was
not merely a large square of cloth erected on four posts, an integral
part of the bed only. The bed was so constructed that the four posts,
beginning at the four corners, stretched from floor to ceiling. The
heavy maroon-colored damask of the canopy also reached from floor to
ceiling, connected at the top by a ringed rod from which the folds of
the damask hung gracefully.
“Well, if it’s anywhere,” grunted the Inspector, dragging one of the
damask-covered bedroom chairs to the bed, “it’s up there. Here, boys,
lend a hand.”
He stood on the chair with a fine disregard for the havoc his shoes
were wreaking on the silken material. Finding upon stretching his
arms above his head that he was still many feet short of touching the
ceiling, he stepped down.
“Doesn’t look as if you could make it either, Ellery,” he muttered.
“And Field was no taller than you. There must be a ladder handy
somewhere by which Field himself got up here!”
Cronin dashed into the kitchenette at Ellery’s nod in that direction.
He was back in a moment with a six-foot stepladder. The Inspector,
mounting to the highest rung, found that his fingers were still short
of touching the rod. Ellery solved the difficulty by ordering his
father down and climbing to the top himself. Standing on the ladder he
was in a position to explore the top of the canopy.
He grasped the damask firmly and pulled. The entire fabric gave way and
fell to the sides, revealing a wooden panel about twelve inches deep—a
framework which the hangings had concealed. Ellery’s fingers swept
swiftly over the wooden relief-work of this panel. Cronin and the
Inspector were staring with varying expressions up at him. Finding
nothing that at the moment presented a possibility of entrance, Ellery
leaned forward and explored the damask directly beneath the floor of
the panel.
“Rip it down!” growled the Inspector.
Ellery jerked violently at the material and the entire canopy of damask
fell to the bed. The bare unornamented floor of the panel was revealed.
“It’s hollow,” announced Ellery, rapping his knuckles on the under-side
paneling.
“That doesn’t help much,” said Cronin. “It wouldn’t be a solid chunk,
anyway. Why don’t you try the other side of the bed, Mr. Queen?”
But Ellery, who had drawn back and was again examining the side of
the panel, exclaimed triumphantly. He had been seeking a complicated,
Machiavellian “secret door”—he found now that the secret door was
nothing more subtle than a sliding-panel. It was cleverly concealed—the
juncture of sliding and stationary panels was covered by a row of
wooden rosettes and clumsy decorations—but it was nothing that a
student of mystery lore would have hailed as a triumph of concealment.
“It begins to appear as if I were being vindicated,” Ellery chuckled
as he peered into the black recesses of the hole he had uncovered. He
thrust a long arm into the aperture. The Inspector and Cronin were
staring at him with bated breath.
“By all the pagan gods,” shouted Ellery suddenly, his lean body
quivering with excitement. “Do you remember what I told you, dad? Where
would those papers be except in—hats!”
His sleeve coated with dust, he withdrew his arm and the two men below
saw in his hand a musty silk tophat!
Cronin executed an intricate jig as Ellery dropped the hat on the
bed and dipped his arm once more into the yawning hole. In a moment he
had brought out another hat—and another—and still another! There they
lay on the bed—two silk hats and two derbies.
“Take this flashlight, son,” commanded the Inspector. “See if there’s
anything else up there.”
Ellery took the proffered electric torch and flashed its beam into the
aperture. After a moment he clambered down, shaking his head.
“That’s all,” he announced, dusting his sleeve, “but I should think it
would be enough.”
The Inspector picked up the four hats and carried them into the
living-room, where he deposited them on a sofa. The three men sat down
gravely and regarded each other.
“I’m sort of itching to see what’s what,” said Cronin finally, in a
hushed voice.
“I’m rather afraid to look,” retorted the Inspector.
“_Mene mene tekel upharsin_,” laughed Ellery. “In this case it might be
interpreted as ‘the handwriting on the panel.’ Examine on, MacDuff!”
The Inspector picked up one of the silk hats. It bore on the rich
satiny lining the chaste trademark of Browne Bros. Ripping out the
lining and finding nothing beneath, he tried to tear out the leather
sweat-band. It resisted his mightiest efforts. He borrowed Cronin’s
pocket-knife and with difficulty slashed away the band. Then he looked
up.
“This hat, Romans and countrymen,” he said pleasantly, “contains
nothing but the familiar ingredients of hat-wear. Would you care to
examine it?”
Cronin uttered a savage cry and snatched it from the Inspector’s hand.
He literally tore the hat to pieces in his rage.
“Heck!” he said disgustedly, throwing the remnants on the floor.
“Explain that to my undeveloped brain, will you, Inspector?”
Queen smiled, taking up the second silk hat and regarding it
curiously.
“You’re at a disadvantage, Tim,” he said. “We know why one of these
hats is a blank. Don’t we, Ellery?”
“Michaels,” murmured Ellery.
“Exactly—Michaels,” returned the Inspector.
“Charley Michaels!” exclaimed Cronin. “Field’s strong-arm guy, by all
that’s holy! Where does he come into this?”
“Can’t tell yet. Know anything about him?”
“Nothing except that he hung onto Field’s coat-tails pretty closely.
He’s an ex-jailbird, did you know that?”
“Yes,” replied the Inspector dreamily. “We’ll have a talk about that
phase of Mr. Michaels some other time.... But let me explain that
hat: Michaels on the evening of the murder laid out, according to his
statement, Field’s evening clothes, including a silk hat. Michaels
swore that as far as he knew Field possessed only _one_ topper. Now
if we suppose that Field used hats for concealing papers, and was
going to the Roman Theatre that night wearing a ‘loaded’ one he must
necessarily have substituted the loaded hat for the empty one which
Michaels prepared. Since he was so careful to keep only one silk hat in
the closet, he realized that Michaels, should he find a topper, would
be suspicious. So, in switching hats, he had to conceal the empty one.
What more natural than that he should put it in the place from which he
had taken the loaded hat—the panel above the bed?”
“Well, I’ll be switched!” exclaimed Cronin.
“Finally,” resumed the Inspector, “we can take it as gospel that Field,
who was devilishly careful in the matter of his headgear, intended
to restore the theatre hat to its hideaway when he got home from the
Roman. Then he would have taken out this one which you’ve just torn
up and put it back in the clothes-closet.... But let’s get on.”
He pulled down the leather inner-band of the second silk hat, which
also bore the imprint of Browne Bros. “Look at this, will you!” he
exclaimed. The two men bent over and saw on the inner surface of the
band, lettered with painful clarity in a purplish ink, the words
BENJAMIN MORGAN.
“I’ve got to pledge you to secrecy, Tim,” said the Inspector
immediately, turning to the red-haired man. “Never let on that you were
a witness to the finding of papers in any way implicating Benjamin
Morgan in this affair.”
“What do you think I am, Inspector?” growled Cronin. “I’m as dumb as an
oyster, believe me!”
“All right, then.” Queen felt the lining of the hat. There was a
distinct crackle.
“Now,” remarked Ellery calmly, “we know for the first time definitely
why the murderer _had_ to take away the hat Field wore Monday night. In
all likelihood the murderer’s name was lettered in the same way—that’s
indelible ink, you know—and the murderer couldn’t leave a hat with his
own name in it at the scene of the crime.”
“By gosh, if you only had that hat, now,” cried Cronin, “you’d know who
the murderer is!”
“I’m afraid, Tim,” replied the Inspector dryly, “that hat is gone
forever.”
He indicated a row of careful stitches at the base of the inner band,
where the lining was attached to the fabric. He ripped these stitches
swiftly and inserted his fingers between the lining and the crown.
Silently he drew out a sheaf of papers held together by a thin rubber
band.
“If I were as nasty as some people think I am,” mused Ellery,
leaning back, “I might with perfect justice say, ‘I told you so.’”
“We know when we’re licked, my son—don’t rub it in,” chortled the
Inspector. He snapped off the rubber band, glanced hastily through the
papers and with a satisfied grin deposited them in his breast pocket.
“Morgan’s, all right,” he said briefly, and attacked one of the derbies.
The inner side of the band was marked cryptically with an X. The
Inspector found a row of stitches exactly as in the silk hat. The
papers he drew out—a thicker bundle than Morgan’s—he examined
cursorily. Then he handed them to Cronin, whose fingers were trembling.
“A stroke of luck, Tim,” he said slowly. “The man you were angling for
is dead, but there are a lot of big names in this. I think you’ll find
yourself a hero one of these days.”
Cronin grasped the bundle and feverishly unfolded the papers, one by
one. “They’re here—they’re here!” he shouted. He jumped to his feet,
stuffing the sheaf into his pocket.
“I’ve got to beat it. Inspector,” he said rapidly. “There’s a load of
work to do at last—and besides, what you find in that fourth hat is
none of my business. I can’t thank you and Mr. Queen enough! So long!”
He dashed from the room, and a moment later the snores of the policeman
in the foyer came to an abrupt end. The outer door banged shut.
Ellery and the Inspector looked at each other.
“I don’t know what good this stuff is going to do us,” grumbled the
old man, fumbling with the inner band of the last hat, a derby.
“We’ve found things and deduced things and run rings around our
imaginations—well....” He sighed as he held the band up to the light.
It was marked: MISC.