The Roman hat mystery A problem in deduction
not—that Mr. Morgan be arrested for the murder of Monte Field?”
“Why—what else?” Velie seemed at a loss.
“We’ll wait a while, Thomas,” returned the old man heavily.
CHAPTER XVI
IN WHICH THE QUEENS GO TO THE THEATRE
Ellery and his father regarded each other across the length of the
little office. Velie had resumed his seat with a puzzled frown. He sat
quietly for a time in the growing silence, seemed suddenly to make a
decision and asking permission left the room.
The Inspector grinned as he fumbled with the lid of his snuff-box.
“Did you get a scare, too, Ellery?”
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.”
“I should say the interview was highly successful,” commented Ellery.
“Principally because I’ve been gathering a few interesting facts from
this ponderous tome on chirography. But Mrs. Angela Russo does not
measure up to my conception of perfect womanhood....”
“If you ask me,” chuckled the Inspector, “our beauteous friend has a
crush on you. Consider the opportunities, my son—!”
Ellery made a grimace of profound ♦distaste.
♦ “distate” replaced with “distaste”
“Well!” Queen reached for one of the telephones on the desk. “Do you
think we ought to give Benjamin Morgan another chance, Ellery?”
“Hanged if he deserves it,” grumbled Ellery. “But I suppose it’s
the routine thing to do.”
“You forget the papers, son—the papers,” retorted the Inspector, a
twinkle in his eye.
He spoke to the police operator in pleasant accents and a few moments
later the buzzer sounded.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Morgan!” Queen said cheerfully. “And how are you
to-day?”
“Inspector Queen?” asked Morgan after a slight hesitation. “Good
afternoon to you, sir. How is the case progressing?”
“That’s a fair question, Mr. Morgan,” laughed the Inspector. “One,
however, which I daren’t answer for fear of being accused of
incompetency.... Mr. Morgan, are you free this evening by any chance?”
Pause. “Why—not free exactly.” The lawyer’s voice was barely audible.
“I am due at home, of course, for dinner, and I believe my wife has
arranged a little bridge. Why, Inspector?”
“I was thinking of asking you to dine with my son and me this evening,”
said the Inspector regretfully. “Could you possibly get away for the
dinner-hour?”
A longer pause. “If it’s absolutely necessary, Inspector—?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way exactly, Mr. Morgan.... But I would
appreciate your accepting the invitation.”
“Oh.” Morgan’s voice came more resolutely now. “In that case I’m at
your command, Inspector. Where shall I meet you?”
“That’s fine, that’s fine!” said Queen. “How about Carlos’, at six?”
“Very well, Inspector,” returned the lawyer quietly and hung up the
receiver.
“I can’t help feeling sorry for the poor chap,” murmured the old man.
Ellery grunted. He was not feeling inclined to sympathize. The
taste of Mrs. Angela Russo was still strong in his mouth, and it was
not a pleasant taste at all.
* * * * *
Promptly at six o’clock Inspector Queen and Ellery joined Benjamin
Morgan in the convivial atmosphere of Carlos’ restaurant-foyer. He was
sitting dejectedly in a red-leather chair, staring at the backs of his
hands. His lips drooped sadly, his knees were widely separated in an
instinctive attitude of depression.
He made a laudable attempt to smile as the two Queens approached. He
rose with a firmness that indicated to his keen hosts a mind determined
upon a fixed course of action. The Inspector was at his bubbling best,
partly because he felt a genuine liking for the corpulent attorney and
partly because it was his business. Ellery, as usual, was noncommittal.
The three men shook hands like old friends.
“Glad to see you’re on time, Morgan,” said the Inspector, as a stiff
headwaiter conducted them to a corner-table. “I really must apologize
for taking you away from your dinner at home. There was a time once—”
He sighed and they sat down.
“No apology necessary,” said Morgan with a wan smile. “I suppose you
know that every married man relishes a bachelor dinner at times....
Just what is it, Inspector, you wanted to talk to me about?”
The old man raised a warning finger. “No business now, Morgan,” he
said. “I have an idea Louis has something up his sleeve in the way of
solid refreshment—right, Louis?”
The dinner was a culinary delight. The Inspector, who was quite
indifferent to the nuances of the art, had left the details of the
menu to his son. Ellery was fanatically interested in the
delicate subject of foods and their preparation. Consequently the
three men dined well. Morgan was at first inclined to taste his food
abstractedly, but he became more and more alive to the delightful
concoctions placed before him, until finally he forgot his troubles
altogether and chatted and laughed with his hosts.
With _café au lait_ and excellent cigars, which Ellery smoked
cautiously, the Inspector diffidently, and Morgan with enjoyment, Queen
came to the point.
“Morgan, I’m not going to beat around the bush. I have an idea you know
why I asked you here to-night. I’m going to be perfectly honest. I want
the true explanation for your silence regarding the events of Sunday
night, September the twenty-third—four nights ago.”
Morgan had become grave immediately the Inspector began to speak.
He put the cigar on the ash-tray and regarded the old man with an
expression of ineffable weariness.
“It was bound to come,” he said. “I might have known that you would
find out sooner or later. I suppose Mrs. Russo told you out of spite.”
“She did,” confessed Queen frankly. “As a gentleman I refuse to listen
to tales; as a policeman it is my duty. Why have you kept this from me,
Morgan?”
Morgan traced a meaningless figure on the cloth with a spoon.
“Because—well, because a man is always a fool until he is made to
realize the extent of his folly,” he said quietly, looking up. “I hoped
and prayed—it is a human failing, I suppose—that the incident would
remain a secret between a dead man and myself. And to find that that
prostitute was hiding in the bedroom—listening to every word I said—it
rather took the wind out of my sails.”
He gulped down a glass of water, rushing ahead. “The God’s honest
truth, Inspector, is that I thought I was being drawn into a trap
and I couldn’t bring myself to furnish contributory evidence. There I
found myself in the theatre, not so far away from my worst enemy found
murdered. I could not explain my presence except by an apparently silly
and unsubstantiated story; and I remembered in a bitter flash that I
had actually quarreled with the dead man the night before. It was a
tight position, Inspector—take my word for it.”
Inspector Queen said nothing. Ellery was leaning far back in his chair,
watching Morgan with gloomy eyes. Morgan swallowed hard and went on.
“That’s why I didn’t say anything. Can you blame a man for keeping
quiet when his legal training warns him so decisively of the net of
circumstantial evidence he is helping to manufacture?”
Queen was silent for a moment. Then—“We’ll let that pass for the
moment, Morgan. Why did you go to see Field Sunday night?”
“For a very good reason,” answered the lawyer bitterly. “On Thursday,
a week ago, Field called me up at my office and told me that he was
making a last business venture that entailed his procuring fifty
thousand dollars at once. Fifty thousand dollars!” Morgan laughed
dryly. “After he had milked me until I was as flabby financially as an
old cow.... And his ‘business venture’—can you imagine what it was?
If you knew Field as well as I did, you would find the answer on the
race-tracks and the stock-market.... Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps he was
hard pressed for money and was cleaning up his old ‘accounts.’ At any
rate, he wanted the fifty thousand on a brand-new proposition—that he
would actually return the original documents to me for that sum! It was
the first time he had even suggested such a thing. Every time—before—he
had insolently asked blackmail for silence. This time it was a
buy-and-sell proposition.”
“That’s an interesting point, Mr. Morgan,” put in Ellery, with a
flicker of his eyes. “Did anything in his conversation definitely lead
you to suspect that he was ‘cleaning up old accounts,’ as you phrase
it?”
“Yes. That is why I said what I did. He gave me the impression that he
was hard up, meant to take a little vacation—vacation to him would be a
three-year jaunt on the Continent, nothing less—and was soliciting all
his ‘friends.’ I never knew that he was in the blackmailing business on
a large scale; but this time—!”
Ellery and the Inspector exchanged glances. Morgan forged ahead.
“I told him the truth. That I was in a bad way financially, chiefly
through him, and that it would be absolutely impossible for me to
raise the preposterous amount he demanded. He merely laughed—insisted
on getting the money. I was most anxious to get the papers back, of
course....”
“Had you verified from your cancelled vouchers the fact that some were
missing?” asked the Inspector.
“It wasn’t necessary, Inspector,” grated Morgan. “He actually exhibited
the vouchers and letters for my benefit in the Webster Club two years
ago—when we had the quarrel. Oh, there is no question about it. He was
top man.”
“Go on.”
“He hung up on me with a thinly veiled threat last Thursday. I had
tried desperately during the conversation to make him believe that I
would in some way meet his demands, because I knew that he would have
no scruples at all about publishing the papers once he realized he had
sucked me dry....”
“Did you ask him if you could see the documents?” asked Ellery.
“I believe I did—but he laughed at me and said I would see the
color of my checks and letters when he saw the color of my money. He
was nobody’s fool, that crook—he was taking no chances on my doing him
in while he brought out the damning evidence.... You see how frank I
am. I will even admit that at times the thought of violence entered
my head. What man could keep from thinking such thoughts under those
circumstances? But I never entertained homicidal fancies seriously,
gentlemen—for a very good reason.” He paused.
“It wouldn’t have done you any good,” said Ellery softly. “You didn’t
know where the documents were!”
“Exactly,” returned Morgan with a tremulous smile. “I didn’t know. And
with those papers liable to come to light at any time—to fall into
anybody’s hands—what good would Field’s death have done me? I would
probably have exchanged a bad taskmaster for a worse.... On Sunday
night, after trying for three terrible days to get together the money
he asked for—with no result—I decided to come to a final settlement
with him. I went to his apartment and found him in a dressing-gown,
much surprised and not at all apprehensive at seeing me. The
living-room was upset—I did not know at the time that Mrs. Russo was
hiding in the next room.”
He re-lit the cigar with shaking fingers.
“We quarreled—or rather I quarreled and he sneered. He would listen
to no argument, to no plea. He wanted the fifty thousand or he would
send the story around—and the proofs. It sort of got on my nerves
after a while.... I left before I lost control of myself utterly. And
that’s all, Inspector, on my word of honor as a gentleman and as an
unfortunate victim of circumstances.”
He turned his head away. Inspector Queen coughed and threw his cigar