The Roman Hat Mystery - (1)
CHAPTER
I. In Which Are Introduced a Theatre-Audience and a Corpse 3
II. In Which One Queen Works and Another Queen Watches 12
III. In Which a “Parson” Comes to Grief 29
IV. In Which Many Are Called and Two Are Chosen 47
V. In Which Inspector Queen Conducts Some Legal Conversations ♦56
VI. In Which the District Attorney Turns Biographer 79
VII. The Queens Take Stock 90
PART TWO
VIII. In Which the Queens Meet Mr. Field’s Very Best Friend 105
IX. In Which the Mysterious Mr. Michaels Appears 123
X. In Which Mr. Field’s Tophats Begin to Assume Proportions 131
XI. In Which the Past Casts a Shadow 145
XII. In Which the Queens Invade Society 158
XIII. Queen to Queen 174
PART THREE
XIV. In Which the Hat Grows 197
XV. In Which an Accusation Is Made 214
XVI. In Which the Queens Go to the Theatre 226
XVII. In Which More Hats Grow 240
XVIII. Stalemate 261
INTERLUDE
In Which the Reader’s Attention Is Respectfully Requested ♠271
PART FOUR
XIX. In Which Inspector Queen Conducts More Legal Conversations 275
XX. In Which Mr. Michaels Writes a Letter 286
XXI. In Which Inspector Queen Makes a Capture— 290
XXII. —And Explains 295
♦ “57” replaced with “56” ♠ “270” replaced with “271”
FORWARD
I have been asked by both publisher and author to write a cursory preface to the story of Monte Field’s murder. Let me say at once that I am neither a writer nor a criminologist. To make authoritative remarks, therefore, anent the techniques of crime and crime-fiction is obviously beyond my capacity. Nevertheless, I have one legitimate claim to the privilege of introducing this remarkable story, based as it is upon perhaps the most mystifying crime of the past decade.... If it were not for me, “The Roman Hat Mystery” would never have reached the fiction-reading public. I am responsible for its having been brought to light; and there my pallid connection with it ends.
During the past winter I shook off the dust of New York and went a-traveling in Europe. In the course of a capricious roving about the corners of the Continent (a roving induced by that boredom which comes to every Conrad in quest of his youth)—I found myself one August day in a tiny Italian mountain-village. How I got there, its location and its name do not matter; a promise is a promise, even when it is made by a stockbroker. Dimly I remembered that this toy hamlet perched on the lip of a sierra harbored two old friends whom I had not seen for two years. They had come from the seething sidewalks of New York to bask in the brilliant peace of an Italian countryside—well, perhaps it was as much curiosity about their regrets as anything else, that prompted me to intrude upon their solitude.
My reception at the hands of old Richard Queen, keener and grayer than ever, and of his son Ellery was cordial enough. We had been more than friends in the old days; perhaps, too, the vinous air of Italy was too heady a cure for their dust-choked Manhattan memories. In any case, they seemed profoundly glad to see me. Mrs. Ellery Queen—Ellery was now the husband of a glorious creature and the startled father of an infant who resembled his grandfather to an extraordinary degree—was as gracious as the name she bore. Even Djuna, no longer the scapegrace I had known, greeted me with every sign of nostalgia.
Despite Ellery’s desperate efforts to make me forget New York and appreciate the lofty beauties of his local scenery, I had not been in their tiny villa for many days before a devilish notion took possession of me and I began to pester poor Ellery to death. I have something of a reputation for persistence, if no other virtue; so that before I left, Ellery in despair agreed to compromise. He took me into his library, locked the door and attacked an old steel filing-cabinet. After a slow search he managed to bring out what I suspect was under his fingers all the time. It was a faded manuscript bound Ellery-like in blue legal paper.
The argument raged. I wished to leave his beloved Italian shores with the manuscript in my trunk, whereas he insisted that the sheaf of contention remain hidden in the cabinet. Old Richard was wrenched away from his desk, where he was writing a treatise for a German magazine on “American Crime and Methods of Detection,” to settle the affair. Mrs. Queen held her husband’s arm as he was about to close the incident with a workmanlike fist; Djuna clucked gravely; and even Ellery, Jr., extracted his pudgy hand from his mouth long enough to make a comment in the gurgle-language of his kind.
The upshot of it all was that “The Roman Hat Mystery” went back to the States in my luggage. Not unconditionally, however—Ellery is a peculiar man. I was forced solemnly and by all I held dear to swear that the identities of my friends and of the important characters concerned in the story be veiled by pseudonyms; and that, on pain of instant annihilation, their names be permanently withheld from the reading public.
Consequently “Richard Queen” and “Ellery Queen” are not the true names of those gentlemen. Ellery himself made the selections; and I might add at once that his choices were deliberately contrived to baffle the reader who might endeavor to ferret the truth from some apparent clue of anagram.
“The Roman Hat Mystery” is based on records actually to be found in the police archives of New York City. Ellery and his father, as usual, worked hand-in-hand on the case. During this period in his career Ellery was a detective-story writer of no mean reputation. Adhering to the aphorism that truth is often stranger than fiction, it was his custom to make notes of interesting investigations for possible use in his murder tales. The affair of the Hat so fascinated him that he kept unusually exhaustive notes, at his leisure coordinating the whole into fiction form, intending to publish it. Immediately after, however, he was plunged into another investigation which left him scant opportunity for business; and when this last case was successfully closed, Ellery’s father, the Inspector, consummated a lifelong ambition by retiring and moving to Italy, bag and baggage. Ellery, who had in this affair[1] found the lady of his heart, was animated by a painful desire to do something “big” in letters; Italy sounded idyllic to him; he married with his father’s blessing and the three of them, accompanied by Djuna, went off to their new European home. The manuscript was utterly forgotten until I rescued it.
[1] “The Mimic Murders.” This crime in its fiction form has not yet reached the public. J. J. McC.
On one point, before I close this painfully unhandsome preface, I should like to make myself clear.
I have always found it extremely difficult to explain to strangers the peculiar affinity which bound Richard to Ellery Queen, as I must call them. For one thing, they are persons of by no means uncomplicated natures. Richard Queen, sprucely middle-aged after thirty-two years’ service in the city police, earned his Inspector’s chevrons not so much through diligence as by an extraordinary grasp of the technique of criminal investigation. It was said, for example, at the time of his brilliant detectival efforts during the now-ancient Barnaby-Ross murder-case,[2] that “Richard Queen by this feat firmly establishes his fame beside such masters of crime-detection as Tamaka Hiero, Brillon the Frenchman, Kris Oliver, Renaud, and James Redix the Younger.”[3]
[2] Ellery Queen made his bow as his father’s unofficial counsel during this investigation.
[3] Chicago Press, January 16, 191-.
Queen, with his habitual shyness toward newspaper eulogy, was the first to scoff at this extravagant statement; although Ellery maintains that for many years the old man secretly preserved a clipping of the story. However that may be—and I like to think of Richard Queen in terms of human personality, despite the efforts of imaginative journalists to make a legend of him—I cannot emphasize too strongly the fact that he was heavily dependent upon his son’s wit for success in many of his professional achievements.
This is not a matter of public knowledge. Some mementoes of their careers are still reverently preserved by friends: the small bachelor establishment maintained during their American residence on West 87th Street, and now a semi-private museum of curios collected during their productive years; the really excellent portrait of father and son, done by Thiraud and hanging in the art-gallery of an anonymous millionaire; Richard’s precious snuff-box, the Florentine antique which he had picked up at an auction and which he thereafter held dearer than rubies, only to succumb to the blandishments of a charming old lady whose name he cleared of slander; Ellery’s enormous collection of books on violence, perhaps as complete as any in the world, which he regretfully discarded when the Queens left for Italy; and, of course, the many as yet unpublished documents containing records of cases solved by the Queens and now stored away from prying eyes in the City’s police archives.
But the things of the heart—the spiritual bonds between father and son—have until this time remained secret from all except a few favored intimates, among whom I was fortunate enough to be numbered. The old man, perhaps the most famous executive of the Detective Division in the last half-century, overshadowing in public renown, it is to be feared, even those gentlemen who sat briefly in the Police Commissioner’s suite—the old man, let me repeat, owed a respectable portion of his reputation to his son’s genius.
In matters of pure tenacity, when possibilities lay frankly open on every hand, Richard Queen was a peerless investigator. He had a crystal-clear mind for detail; a retentive memory for complexities of motive and plot; a cool viewpoint when the obstacle seemed insuperable. Give him a hundred facts, bungled and torn, out of proportion and sequence, and he had them assembled in short order. He was like a bloodhound who follows the true scent in the clutter of a hopelessly tangled trail.
But the intuitive sense, the gift of imagination, belonged to Ellery Queen, the fiction writer. The two might have been twins possessing abnormally developed faculties of mind, impotent by themselves but vigorous when applied one to the other. Richard Queen, far from resenting the bond which made his success so spectacularly possible—as a less generous nature might have done—took pains to make it plain to his friends. The slender, gray old man whose name was anathema to contemporary lawbreakers, used to utter his “confession,” as he called it, with a naïveté explicable only on the score of his proud fatherhood.
One word more. Of all the affairs pursued by the two Queens this, which Ellery has titled “The Roman Hat Mystery” for reasons shortly to be made clear, was surely the crowning case of them all. The dilettante of criminology, the thoughtful reader of detective literature, will understand as the tale unfolds why Ellery considers the murder of Monte Field worthy of study. The average murderer’s motives and habits are fairly accessible to the criminal specialist. Not so, however, in the case of the Field killer. Here the Queens dealt with a person of delicate perception and extraordinary finesse. In fact, as Richard pointed out shortly after the dénouement, the crime planned was as nearly perfect as human ingenuity could make it. As in so many “perfect crimes,” however, a small mischance of fate coupled with Ellery’s acute deductive analyses gave the hunting Queens the single clue which led ultimately to the destruction of the plotter.
J. J. McC.
New York, March 1, 1929.
LEXICON OF PERSONS CONNECTED WITH THE INVESTIGATION
Note: The complete list of individuals, male and female, brought into the story of Monte Field’s murder and appended below is given solely for the convenience of the reader. It is intended to simplify rather than mystify. In the course of perusing mysterio-detective literature the reader is, like as not, apt to lose sight of a number of seemingly unimportant characters who eventually prove of primary significance in the solution of the crime. The writer therefore urges a frequent study of this chart during the reader’s pilgrimage through the tale, if toward no other end than to ward off the inevitable cry of “Unfair!”—the consolation of those who read and do not reason.
E. Q.
Monte Field, an important personage indeed—the victim.
William Pusak, clerk. Cranially a brachycephalic.
Doyle, a gendarme with brains.
Louis Panzer, a Broadway theatre-manager.
James Peale, the Don Juan of “Gunplay.”
Eve Ellis. The quality of friendship is not strained.
Stephen Barry. One can understand the perturbation of the juvenile lead.
Lucille Horton, the “lady of the streets”—in the play.
Hilda Orange, a celebrated English character-actress.
Thomas Velie, Detective-Sergeant who knows a thing or two about crime.
Hesse, Piggott, Flint, Johnson, Hagstrom, Ritter, gentlemen of the Homicide Squad.
Dr. Samuel Prouty, Assistant to the Chief Medical Examiner.
Madge O’Connell, usherette on the fatal aisle.
Dr. Stuttgard. There is always a doctor in the audience.
Jess Lynch, the obliging orangeade-boy.
John Cazzanelli, alias “Parson Johnny,” naturally takes a professional interest in “Gunplay.”
Benjamin Morgan. What do you make of him?
Frances Ives-Pope. Enter the society interest.
Stanford Ives-Pope, man-about-town.
Harry Neilson. He revels in the sweet uses of publicity.
Henry Sampson, for once an intelligent District Attorney.
Charles Michaels, the fly—or the spider?
Mrs. Angela Russo, a lady of reputation.
Timothy Cronin, a legal ferret.
Arthur Stoates, another.
Oscar Lewin, the Charon of the dead man’s office.
Franklin Ives-Pope. If wealth meant happiness—
Mrs. Franklin Ives-Pope, a maternal ♦hypochondriac.
Mrs. Phillips. Middle-aged angels have their uses.
Dr. Thaddeus Jones, toxicologist of the City of New York.
Edmund Crewe, architectural expert attached to the Detective Bureau.
Djuna, an Admirable Crichton of a new species.
The Problem Is—
Who Killed Monte Field?
Meet the astute gentlemen whose business it is to discover such things—
Mr. Richard Queen Mr. Ellery Queen
♦ “hypochrondiac” replaced with “hypochondriac”
Explanation for the
MAP OF THE ROMAN THEATRE
A: Actors’ dressing-rooms.
B: Frances Ives-Pope’s seat.
C: Benjamin Morgan’s seat.
D: Aisle-seats occupied by “Parson Johnny” Cazzanelli and Madge O’Connell.
E: Dr. Stuttgard’s seat.
F, F: Orangeade boys’ stands (only during intermissions).
G: Area in vicinity of crime. Black square represents seat occupied by Monte Field. Three white squares to the right and four white squares directly in front represent vacant seats.
H: Publicity office, occupied by Harry Neilson.
I: Manager Louis Panzer’s private office.
J: Anteroom to manager’s office.
K: Ticket-taker’s box.
L: Only stairway leading to the balcony.
M: Stairway leading downstairs to General Lounge.
N, N: Cashiers’ offices.
O: Property Room.
P: William Pusak’s seat.
Q, Q: Orchestra boxes.
[Illustration: Map of the Roman Theatre Drawn by Ellery Queen]
PART ONE
“The policeman must oft follow the precept of the ‘bakadori’—those fool-birds who, though they know disaster awaits them at the hands and clubs of the beach-combers, brave ignominious death to bury their eggs in the sandy shore.... So the policeman. All Nippon should not deter him from hatching the egg of thoroughness.”
—From A Thousand Leaves, By Tamaka Hiero.
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH ARE INTRODUCED A THEATRE-AUDIENCE AND A CORPSE
The dramatic season of 192- began in a disconcerting manner. Eugene O’Neill had neglected to write a new play in time to secure the financial encouragement of the intelligentzia; and as for the “low-brows,” having attended play after play without enthusiasm, they had deserted the legitimate theatre for the more ingenuous delights of the motion picture palaces.
On the evening of Monday, September 24th, therefore, when a misty rain softened the electric blaze of Broadway’s theatrical district, it was viewed morosely by house-managers and producers from 37th Street to Columbus Circle. Several plays were then and there given their walking-papers by the men higher up, who called upon God and the weather-bureau to witness their discomfiture. The penetrating rain kept the play-going public close to its radios and bridge-tables. Broadway was a bleak sight indeed to those few who had the temerity to patrol its empty streets.
The sidewalk fronting the Roman Theatre, on 47th Street west of the “White Way,” however, was jammed with a mid-season, fair-weather crowd. The title “Gunplay” flared from a gay marquee. Cashiers dextrously attended the chattering throng lined up at the “To-night’s Performance” window. The buff-and-blue doorman, impressive with the dignity of his uniform and the placidity of his years, bowed the evening’s top-hatted and befurred customers into the orchestra with an air of satisfaction, as if inclemencies of weather held no terrors for those implicated in “Gunplay’s” production.
Inside the theatre, one of Broadway’s newest, people bustled to their seats visibly apprehensive, since the boisterous quality of the play was public knowledge. In due time the last member of the audience ceased rustling his program; the last latecomer stumbled over his neighbor’s feet; the lights dimmed and the curtain rose. A pistol coughed in the silence, a man screamed ... the play was on.
“Gunplay” was the first drama of the season to utilize the noises customarily associated with the underworld. Automatics, machine guns, raids on night-clubs, the lethal sounds of gang vendettas—the entire stock-in-trade of the romanticized crime society was jammed into three swift acts. It was an exaggerated reflection of the times—a bit raw, a bit nasty and altogether satisfying to the theatrical public. Consequently it played to packed houses in rain and shine. This evening’s house was proof of its popularity.
The performance proceeded smoothly. The audience was properly thrilled at the thunderous climax to the first act. The rain having stopped, people strolled out into the side alleys for a breath of air during the first ten-minute intermission. With the rising of the curtain on Act II, the detonations on the stage increased in volume. The second act hurtled to its big moment as explosive dialogue shot across the footlights. A slight commotion at the rear of the theatre went unnoticed, not unnaturally, in the noise and the darkness. No one seemed aware of anything amiss and the play crashed on. Gradually, however, the commotion increased in volume. At this point a few spectators at the rear of the left section squirmed about in their seats, to assert their rights in angry whispers. The protest was contagious. In an incredibly short time scores of eyes turned toward that section of the orchestra.
Suddenly a sharp scream tore through the theatre. The audience, excited and fascinated by the swift sequence of events on the stage, craned their necks expectantly in the direction of the cry, eager to witness what they thought was a new sensation of the play.
Without warning the lights of the theatre snapped on, revealing puzzled, fearful, already appreciative faces. At the extreme left, near a closed exit-door, a large policeman stood holding a slight nervous man by the arm. He fended off a group of inquisitive people with a huge hand, shouting in stentorian tones, “Everybody stay right where he is! Don’t move! Don’t get out of your seat, any of you!”
People laughed.
The smiles were soon wiped away. For the audience began to perceive a curious hesitancy on the part of the actors. Although they continued to recite their lines behind the footlights they were casting puzzled glances out into the orchestra. People, noting this, half-rose from their seats, panicky in the presence of a scented tragedy. The officer’s jovian voice continued to thunder, “Keep your seats, I say! Stay where you are!”
The audience suddenly realized that the incident was not play-acting but reality. Women shrieked and clutched their escorts. Bedlam broke loose in the balcony, whose occupants were in no position to see anything below.
The policeman turned savagely to a stocky, foreign-looking man in evening clothes who was standing by, rubbing his hands together.
“I’ll have to ask you to close every exit this minute and see that they’re kept closed, Mr. Panzer,” he growled. “Station an usher at all the doors and tell ’em to hold everybody tryin’ to get in or out. Send somebody outside to cover the alleys, too, until help comes from the station. Move fast, Mr. Panzer, before hell pops!”
The swarthy little man hurried away, brushing aside a number of excited people who had disregarded the officer’s bellowed admonition and had jumped up to question him.
The bluecoat stood wide-legged at the entrance to the last row of the left section, concealing with his bulk the crumpled figure of a man in full evening dress, lying slumped in a queer attitude on the floor between rows. The policeman looked up, keeping a firm grip on the arm of the cowering man at his side, and shot a quick glance toward the rear of the orchestra.
“Hey, Neilson!” he shouted.
A tall tow-headed man hurried out of a small room near the main entrance and pushed his way through to the officer. He looked sharply down at the inert figure on the floor.
“What’s happened here, Doyle?”
“Better ask this feller here,” replied the policeman grimly. He shook the arm of the man he was holding. “There’s a guy dead, and Mr.”—he bent a ferocious glance upon the shrinking little man—“Pusak, W-William Pusak,” he stammered—“this Mr. Pusak,” continued Doyle, “says he heard him whisper he’d been croaked.”
Neilson stared at the dead body, stunned.
The policeman chewed his lip. “I’m in one sweet mess, Harry,” he said hoarsely. “The only cop in the place, and a pack of yellin’ fools to take care of.... I want you to do somethin’ for me.”
“Say the word.... This is one hell of a note!”
Doyle wheeled in a rage to shout to a man who had just risen three rows ahead and was standing on his seat, peering at the proceedings. “Hey you!” he roared. “Get down offa there! Here—get back there, the whole bunch o’ you. Back to your seats, now, or I’ll pinch the whole nosey mob!”
He turned on Neilson. “Beat it to your desk, Harry, and give headquarters a buzz about the murder,” he whispered. “Tell ’em to bring down a gang—make it a big one. Tell ’em it’s a theatre—they’ll know what to do. And here, Harry—take my whistle and toot your head off outside. I gotta get some help right away.”
As Neilson fought his way back through the crowd, Doyle shouted after him: “Better ask ’em to send old man Queen down here, Harry!”
The tow-headed man disappeared into the office. A few moments later a shrill whistle was heard from the sidewalk in front of the theatre.
The swarthy theatre-manager whom Doyle had commanded to place guards at the exits and alleys came scurrying back through the press. His dress-shirt was slightly rumpled and he was mopping his forehead with an air of bewilderment. A woman stopped him as he wriggled his way forward. She squeaked,