The Roman Hat Mystery

The two Queens slipped out of Panzer’s office while he was babbling his reassurances of silence.

They crossed the rear of the orchestra once more, in the direction of the extreme left aisle. The Inspector beckoned curtly to Madge O’Connell.

“Yes,” she breathed, her face chalky.

“Just open those doors wide enough to let us through, O’Connell, and forget all about it afterward. Understand?” said the Inspector grimly.

She mumbled under her breath as she pushed open one of the big iron doors opposite the LL row. With a last warning shake of the head the Inspector slipped through, Ellery following — and the door came softly back into place again.

At 11 o’clock, as the wide exits were disgorging their first flocks of theatre-goers after the final curtain, Richard and Ellery Queen re-entered the Roman Theatre through the main door.

17 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 Buddhalike 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.”