The Roman Hat Mystery

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.

A — Ceiling

B — Door to Living Room

C — Mirror

D — Dressing Table

E — Damask curtains around bed, from ceiling to floor, concealing Shaded portino which represents panel containing hats.

Ellery briskly crushed his cigarette in an ashtray. “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 impossible, 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.

“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 here. 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 underside 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.