Ellery Queen - Roman Hat Mystery

“What tophats were there whose presence was not out of the ordinary — so natural and in so natural a place that they were not even questioned? In the Roman Theatre, where all the costumes were hired from Le Brun, the answer is simple: the rented tophats being used for purposes of the play. Where would such tophats be? Either in the actors’ dressing rooms or in the general wardrobe room backstage. When Ellery had reached this point in his reasoning he took Mrs. Phillips backstage and checked up on every tophat in the actors’ rooms and the wardrobe room. Every tophat there — and all were accounted for, none being missing — was a property tophat bearing on its lining the Le Brun insignia. Field’s hat, which we had proved to be a Browne Bros, topper, was not among the property tophats or anywhere backstage.”

“Since no one left the theatre Monday night with more than one tophat, and since Monte Field’s hat was unquestionably taken out of the theatre that same night, it was positively established that the murderer’s own tophat must have been in the Roman all the time the house was sealed, and was still there at the time of our second search. Now, the only tophats remaining in the theatre were property tophats. It therefore follows that the murderer’s own tophat (which he was forced to leave behind because he walked out with Field’s) must have been one of the property hats backstage, since let me repeat, these were the only tophats of which it could physically have been one.”

“In other words — one of these property tophats backstage belonged to the man who left the theatre Monday night in full dress wearing Field’s silk topper.”

“If this man were the murderer — and he could scarcely be anyone else — then our field of inquiry was narrowed to a considerable degree. He could only have been either a male member of the cast who left the theatre in evening clothes, or somebody closely connected with the theatre and similarly dressed. In the latter case, such a person would have had to have, first, a property tophat to leave behind; second, undisputed access to the wardrobe and dressing rooms; and, third, the opportunity to leave his property tophat in either place.”

“Now let us examine the possibilities in the latter case — that the murderer was closely connected with the theatre, yet not an actor.” The Inspector paused to sniff deeply of the snuff in his treasured box. “The workmen backstage could be discarded because none of them wore the evening clothes which were necessary in order to take away Field’s tophat. The cashiers, ushers, doormen and other minor employees were eliminated for the same reason. Harry Neilson, the publicity man, was also dressed in ordinary street clothes. Panzer, the manager, was attired in full dress, it is true, but I took the trouble to check up his head size and found it to be 6 ¾ — an unusually small size. It would be virtually impossible for him to have worn Field’s hat, which was 7 1/8. It is true that we left the theatre before he did. On my way out, however, I definitely instructed Thomas Velie to make no exception in Panzer’s case, but to search him as the others had been searched. I had examined Panzer’s hat merely from a sense of duty while in his office earlier in the evening, and found it to be a derby. Velie subsequently reported that Panzer walked out with this derby on his head and no other hat in his possession. Now — if Panzer had been the man we were looking for, he might have walked out with Field’s hat despite its larger size by merely holding it in his hand. But when he left with a derby, that was conclusive that he could not have taken away Field’s hat, since the theatre was shut down immediately after his departure and no one — my men on duty saw to that — no one entered the premises until Thursday morning under my own eye. Theoretically it was possible for Panzer, or anyone else in the Roman personnel, to have been the murderer had he been able to secrete Field’s tophat in the theatre. But this last hypothesis was dissipated by the report of Edmund Crewe, our official architectural expert, who definitely stated that there was no secret hiding place anywhere in the Roman Theatre.

“The elimination of Panzer, Neilson and the employees left only the cast as possibilities. How we finally narrowed down the field of inquiry until we got to Barry, let’s leave for the moment. The interesting part of this case is really the startling and complex series of deductions which gave us the truth purely through logical reasoning. I say ‘us’ — I should say Ellery...”

“For a police Inspector you are certainly a shrinking violet,” chuckled Cronin. “By gee, this is better than a detective story. I ought to be working now, but since my boss seems to be as interested as I am — keep going, Inspector!”

Queen smiled, forging ahead.

“The fact that the murderer was traced to the cast,” he continued, “answers a question which has probably occurred to you and which certainly troubled us in the beginning. We could not at first understand why the theatre should have been chosen as a meeting place for the transaction of secret business. When you stop to think about it, a theatre presents enormous disadvantages under ordinary circumstances. Extra tickets, to mention only one thing, have to be bought to insure privacy through empty seats in the vicinity. What a silly tangle to get into when other meeting places are so much more convenient! A theatre is dark most of the time and disturbingly quiet. Any untoward noise or conversation is remarked. The crowds present a constant danger — one of recognition. However, all this is automatically explained when you realize that Barry was a member of the cast. From his standpoint the theatre was ideal — for who would dream of suspecting an actor of murder when the victim is found dead in the orchestra? Of course Field acquiesced, never suspecting what was in Barry’s mind and that he was conniving his own death. Even if he were a little suspicious, you must remember that he was accustomed to dealing with dangerous people and probably felt capable of taking care of himself. This may have made him a little overconfident — we have no way, of course, of knowing.

“Let me get back to Ellery again — my favorite subject,” continued the Inspector, with one of his recurrent dry chuckles. “Aside from these deductions about the hat — as a matter of fact, before the deductions were completely worked out — Ellery got his first indication of which way the wind blew during the meeting at the Ives-Pope house. It was clear that Field had not accosted Frances Ives-Pope in the alleyway between acts with merely flirtatious intentions. It seemed to Ellery that some connection existed between the two widely separated individuals. Now, this does not mean that Frances had to be aware of the connection. She was positive that she had never heard of or seen Field before. We had no reason to doubt her and every reason to believe her. That possible connection might have been Stephen Barry, provided Stephen Barry and Field knew each other without Frances’ knowledge. If, for example, Field had an appointment at the theatre Monday night with the actor and suddenly saw Frances, it was possible that in his half-drunken mood he would venture to approach her, especially since the subject he and Barry had in common concerned her so deeply. As for recognizing her — thousands of people who read the daily papers know every line of her features — she is a much-photographed young society lady. Field certainly would have acquainted himself with her description and appearance out of sheer thoroughness of business method... But to return to the triangle connection — Field, Frances, Barry — which I will go into detail later. You realize that no one else in the cast except Barry, who was engaged to Frances and had been publicly announced as her fiancé, with pictures and all the rest of the journalistic business, could have satisfied so well the question: Why did Field accost Frances?