Chapter XVII in Which More Hats Grow (2)

    “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.
    - 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.