The Roman Hat Mystery quotes

Several plays were then and there given their walking-papers by the men higher up, who called upon God and the weather-bureau to witness their discomfiture.

The penetrating rain kept the play-going public close to its radios and bridge-tables.

Broadway was a bleak sight indeed to those few who had the temerity to patrol its empty streets.

The Inspector looked grave. “Well, Thomas, this is Mr. Monte Field—what’s left of him.” Velie grunted.

“Where the average police system falls down,” came Ellery’s voice over his father’s shoulder, “is in its ruthless tracking down of gentlemen who dispose of such fungus as Mr. Monte Field.”

The Inspector straightened, dusted his knees carefully, took a pinch of snuff, and said, “Ellery, my boy, you’ll never make a policeman. I didn’t know you knew Field.”

“Eh?” Ellery started, blinking his eyes. He removed his pince-nez, and said slowly, “My very revered father, I am beginning to think that—Well!

There’s little peace in this world for a quiet book-loving man.

” He sat down on the arm of the dead man’s seat, his eyes troubled. Suddenly he smiled.

There’s little peace in this world for a quiet book-loving man.” He sat down on the arm of the dead man’s seat, his eyes troubled. Suddenly he smiled. “

Take care that you don’t repeat the unfortunate error of that ancient butcher who, with his twoscore apprentices, sought high and low for his most treasured knife when all the time it reposed quietly in his mouth.

”

Some natures, through peculiar weakness, cannot endure the sight of a whining man.

Of all the silent, threatening group ringed about the abject figure called “Parson,” Ellery alone experienced a sick feeling of disgust at the spectacle the prisoner was making of himself.

Ellery, reflectively watching the Parson being dragged toward the rear of the theatre, was startled to hear his father say, “The Parson isn’t too bright, is he? To make a slip like that—!”

“Be thankful for small favors,” smiled Ellery. “One error breeds twenty more.”

The Inspector turned with a grin to confront Velie, who had just arrived with a sheaf of papers in his hand.

Few people knew him as he was. To his associates, to his enemies, to the forlorn scraps of humanity whom he turned over to the due processes of the law, he remained ever a source of wonder.

He could be theatrical when he chose, or mild, or pompous, or fatherly, or bulldogging.

But underneath, as someone has said with an over-emphatic sentimentality, the Inspector had “a heart of gold.” Inside he was harmless, and keen, and not a little hurt by the cruelties of the world.

“Just finished when I strolled across the street for the refreshments,” said Ellery. “There was nothing else to do but allow the angry mob in the gallery to file downstairs and out into the street. Everybody’s out now—the galleryites, the employees, the cast. …

Queer species, actors. All night they play God and then suddenly they find themselves reduced to ordinary street clothes and the ills that flesh is heir to.

By the way, Velie also searched the five people who came out of this office. Quite a motor that young lady possesses. Miss Ives-Pope and her party, I gathered. … Didn’t know but that you might have forgotten them,” he chuckled.

“So you see where we are,” Ellery continued ruefully. “

All we have managed to derive from this evening’s entertainment is a plethora of suspicions and a poverty of facts.

”

“You’re perfectly justified in your caution,” chuckled Ellery. “But if you should change your mind and decide to invoke the spirit of Bacchus, Piggott, let me suggest this prayer:

O wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee Death.

”

Ellery lit a cigarette. “I didn’t know it at all,” he said cheerfully. “That is, not until you told me.

It would pay you to cultivate the Delphic oracles, Michaels.

”

“On the contrary,” said Ellery coolly, “it does nothing of the kind. It proves fairly conclusively that the only article of apparel taken away by the murderer last night was the hat. It seems to me that simplifies matters.”

“I must have a moron’s intelligence,” grunted his father. “It doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

“By the way, Inspector,” put in Velie, scowling, “Jimmy reported about the fingerprints on Field’s flask. There are a few, but there’s no question, he says, that they’re all Field’s. Jimmy got a print from the morgue, of course, to check up.”

There was an instantaneous little burst of approval and everybody rose to press in on Frances, who was radiant with happiness. Barry, Peale and Eve Ellis bore Frances off in triumphal march, while Stanford, with a lugubrious smile, offered his mother a carefully elbowed arm.

“Thus endeth the first lesson,” he announced gravely. “Mater, my arm before you faint!”

A protesting Mrs. Ives-Pope departed, leaning ponderously on her son.

“Oh, that!” Ellery smiled a little.

“Do you mind if I become Aesopian?”

“A lion,” said Ellery, “may be beholden to a mouse.”

“Oh, that!” Ellery smiled a little. “Do you mind if I become Aesopian?”

“A lion,” said Ellery, “may be beholden to a mouse.”

To a scientist this announcement, in Dr. Jones’ profoundest tones, might have carried a dramatic quality. To the Inspector it meant less than nothing. As for Ellery, he murmured,

“Sounds like a mythological monster to me!”

Dr. Jones went on, smiling. “So it hasn’t impressed you much, eh? But let me tell you a little about tetra ethyl lead. It is almost colorless—to be more exact, it resembles chloroform in physical appearance. Point number one.

Ellery shivered. “

With the possible exceptions of the Metropolitan Opera House and Titus’ Tomb, this is the most dismal theatorium I’ve ever entered. It’s a fitting mausoleum for the dear departed.

…”

We find that we can do nothing further here, so there is no reason for depriving you of your patronage any longer. You may run a performance tonight—in fact, we are most anxious to see a show put on, aren’t we, Ellery?”

“ ‘Anxious’ is hardly the word,” said Ellery, lighting a cigarette. “I should say we insist upon it.”

“Exactly,” murmured the Inspector severely. “We insist upon it, Panzer.”

“As far as you know, Mrs. Russo,” said Ellery icily, “from long and no doubt intimate association with your gallant Leander—how many different silk tophats did he possess?”

“You’re the original crossword puzzle, aren’t you?” she gurgled.

“As far as I know, Mr. Man, he had only one. How many does a guy need?”

“Sure’s you’re born, Mr.—Queen.” She contrived to slip a caress into her voice.

Ellery stared at her as one stares at a strange zoological specimen.

She made a little moue and turned about gayly.

Ellery, however, was serious.

“That woman gives me a case of Wodehouse willies,” he said, shuddering. “Scare is much too mild a word.”

“I couldn’t for the moment grasp the significance of her attitude,” said Inspector Queen. “To think that she knew, while we have been fumbling around. … It scattered my wits.”

“Heck!” grumbled the old man. “We should have come in after the curtain went up.”

“You’re much too sensitive to public acclaim, mon père,” laughed Ellery. “I don’t mind the limelight.”

He consulted his wristwatch and their glances met significantly. It was exactly 8:25. They wriggled in their seats and settled down.

Inside was the pile of papers, canceled bills and letters they had offered for the old man’s inspection. Old Queen actually peered through these torn and ragged sheets as if they might conceal messages in invisible ink. He shrugged his shoulders and threw them down.

“Darned if I’m not growing romantic in my old age,” he growled. “The influence of a fiction-writing rascal of a son.”

He picked up the miscellaneous articles he himself had found on Tuesday in the pockets of the closet coats. Ellery was scowling now; Cronin was beginning to wear a forlorn, philosophical expression;

“I’m sort of itching to see what’s what,” said Cronin finally, in a hushed voice.

“I’m rather afraid to look,” retorted the Inspector.

“Mene mene tekel upharsin,” laughed Ellery. “In this case it might be interpreted as ‘the handwriting on the panel.’ Examine on, MacDuff!”

“Poor dad!” chuckled Ellery. “Don’t take life so seriously. If you fail, you fail.

Monte Field wasn’t worth a hill of legumes, anyway.

”

Inspector Queen was very tired. His face, worn, thin, white, lined, was like a cameo in the dull red light. His hand caressed Djuna’s curly head.

“Djuna, lad,” he muttered, “never be a policeman when you grow up.”

Djuna twisted his neck and stared gravely at the old man. “I’m going to be just what you are,” he announced. …

“Ellery, old son,” he said, “the last shred of evidence is gone. It’s maddening! Not a morsel of physical, tangible evidence that would convict the murderer in court. What have we? A series of perfectly sound deductions—and that’s all.

A good lawyer would make Swiss cheese out of our case.

… Well! The last word hasn’t been spoken yet,” he added with a sudden grimness as he rose from the chair. He pounded Ellery’s broad back in returning vigor.

“

Every riddle is simple when you know the answer,

” retorted the Inspector.