The Roman Hat Mystery

I won’t beat around the bush. Last Monday night you killed Field in the Roman Theatre. Monte Field told me Sunday he had an appointment with you at the Theatre. And I am the only one who does know this.

Another thing. I also know why you killed him. You put him away to get hold of the papers in Field’s hat. But you do not know that the papers you stole from him are not the originals. To prove this to you, I am enclosing one sheet from the testimony of Nellie Johnson which was in Field’s possession. If the papers you took from Field’s hat are still in existence, compare what you have with this one. You will soon see that I am giving you the straight goods. And I have the rest of the originals safely put away where you will never lay hands on them. I might say that the police are looking for them with their tongues hanging out. Wouldn’t it be nice if I stepped into Inspector Queen’s office with the papers and my little story?

I will give you a chance to buy these papers. You can bring $25,000 in cold cash to the place I describe, and I will hand them over to you. I need money and you need the papers and my silence.

Meet me tomorrow, Tuesday night, at twelve o’clock, at the seventh bench on the right-hand side of the paved path in Central Park which starts at the northwest corner of 59th Street and 5th Avenue. I will be dressed in a gray overcoat and a gray slouch hat. Just say the word Papers to me.

“This is the only way you can get the papers. Don’t look for me before the appointment. If you are not there, I know what I have to do.”

The scrawl, closely and painfully written, was signed: “Charles Michaels.”

Inspector Queen sighed, licked the flap of the envelope and sealed it. He stared steadily at the name and address written in the same handwriting on the envelope. Unhurriedly he affixed a stamp on one corner.

He pressed another button. The door opened to admit Detective Ritter.

“Good morning, Inspector.”

“Morning, Ritter.” The Inspector weighed the envelope reflectively in his hand. “What are you working on now?”

The detective shuffled his feet. “Nothing special, Inspector. I was helping Sergeant Velie up to Saturday, but I haven’t had any work yet on the Field case this morning.”

“Well, then, I’ll give you a nice little job.” The Inspector suddenly grinned, holding out the envelope. Ritter took it with a bewildered air. “Here, son, go to the corner of 149th Street and Third Avenue and post this letter in the nearest mailbox!”

Ritter stared, scratched his head, looked at Queen and finally went out, depositing the letter in his pocket.

The Inspector tilted his chair and took a pinch of snuff with every evidence of satisfaction.

21 In Which Inspector Queen Makes a Capture

On Tuesday evening, October second, promptly at 11:30 P.M., a tall man wearing a soft black hat and a black overcoat, the collar pulled up around his face to keep out the raw night air, sauntered out of the lobby of a small hotel on 53rd Street near Seventh Avenue and proceeded at a sharp pace up Seventh Avenue toward Central Park.

Arrived at 59th Street he turned to the east and made his way along the deserted thoroughfare in the direction of Fifth Avenue. When he reached the Fifth Avenue entrance to Central Park, off the Plaza circle, he stopped in the shadow of one of the big concrete corner posts and leaned back idly. As he lit a cigarette the flare from a match illumined his face. It was that of an elderly man, a trifle lined. A grizzled mustache drooped in a straggling line from his upper lip. Under his hat a gray patch of hair was visible. Then the light from the match flickered out.

He stood quietly against the concrete post, hands jammed into his overcoat pockets, puffing away at his cigarette. An observer would have noticed, had he been keen, that the man’s fingers trembled slightly and that his black-shod feet tapped the sidewalk in an unsteady tattoo.

When his cigarette burned down, he threw it away and glanced at a watch on his wrist. The hands stood at 11:50. He swore impatiently and stepped past the portals of the Park entrance.

The light from the overhead arcs bordering the Plaza dimmed as he walked up the stone lane. Hesitating, as if he were undecided as to his course of action, he looked about him, considered for a moment, then crossed over to the first bench and sat down heavily — like a man tired from his day’s work and contemplating a restful quarter of an hour in the silence and darkness of the Park.

Slowly his head dropped; slowly his figure grew slack. He seemed to have fallen into a doze.