Эллери Куин: The Egyptian Cross Mystery

“Well,” grumbled Inspector Vaughn, “if you can’t put it down on a swindle sheet, and you won’t stand it yourself, I’ll be damned if I see how—”

“My dear Inspector,” drawled Ellery, “I’ll write a book about it, call it as a memento of my sometimes impulsive erudition The Egyptian Cross Mystery, and let the public pay for it!”

Si finis bonus est,

Totum bonum erit.

— GESTA ROMANORUM

Mr. Queen refers here to the investigation which he later embodied between the covers of The Roman Hat Mystery (Signet Books). — EDITOR’S NOTE.

“When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, that is a sign that it should be rejected.”

Purchasers of Mr Ellery Queen’s The Greek Coffin Mystery will recall that in its pages was included a little pamphlet entitled How to Read the Queen Stores. In this pamphlet Mr. Queen outlined the identical syllogism which appears above — a little jest of his own which his readers could not have been expected to appreciate fully, since they had no way of knowing that this exercise in logic would be an integral part of the succeeding novel. - The Editor.