The Roman hat mystery A problem in deduction
more important, it had the name of Le Brun, the theatrical costumer,
stamped in it. You can see that this would immediately point to
someone in the cast—just the thing he wished to avoid. He told me
also that at the moment, and for quite some time thereafter, he felt
that the most the police could deduce from the hat’s being missing
was that it was taken because it contained something valuable. He
could not see how this investigatory guess would point the finger of
suspicion anywhere near him. When I explained to him the series of
deductions Ellery made from the mere fact that the tophat was missing,
he was utterly astounded.... You can see, now, that the only really
fundamental weakness of his crime was due not to an oversight or a
mistake on his part, but to an occurrence which he could not possibly
have foreseen. It forced his hand and the entire chain was started. Had
Barry’s name not been lettered in Field’s hat, there is no question in
my mind but that he would be a free and unsuspected man to-day. The
police records would carry another unsolved murder on its pages.
“I need not state that this entire train of thought flashed through his
brain in less time than it takes to describe. He saw what he had to do
and his plans adjusted themselves instantly to the new development....
When Field extracted the papers from the hat, Barry examined them
cursorily under the lawyer’s watchful eye. He did this by the same
pencil flashlight—a tiny streak of illumination quite obscured by their
shielding bodies. The papers seemed in good order and complete. But
Barry did not spend much time over the papers at the moment. He looked
up with a rueful smile and said: ‘Seem to be all here, damn you’—very
naturally, as if they were enemies under a truce and he was being a
good sport. Field interpreted the remark for what it was intended to
convey. Barry dipped into his pocket—the light was out now—and, as if
he were nervous, took a swig at a pocket-flask of good whisky. Then as
if recollecting his manners, he asked Field pleasantly enough if
he would not take a drink to bind the bargain. Field, having seen Barry
drink from the flask, could have no suspicion of foul play. In fact, he
probably never dreamed that Barry would try to do him in. Barry handed
him a flask....
“But it wasn’t the same flask. Under cover of the darkness he had taken
out two flasks—the one he himself used coming from his left hip-pocket,
the flask he gave Field coming from his right hip-pocket. In handing
it over to Field, he merely switched flasks. It was very simple—and
made simpler because of the darkness and the fuddled condition of
the lawyer.... The ruse of the flask worked. But Barry had taken no
chances. He had in his pocket a hypodermic filled with the poison. If
Field had refused to drink Barry was prepared to plunge the needle
into the lawyer’s arm or leg. He possessed a hypodermic needle which a
physician had procured for him many years before. Barry had suffered
from nervous attacks and could not remain under a doctor’s care
since he was traveling from place to place with a stock company. The
hypodermic was untraceable, therefore, on a cold trail years old; and
he was ready if Field refused to drink. So you see—his plan, even in
this particular, was foolproof....
“The flask from which Field drank contained good whiskey, all right,
but mixed with tetra ethyl lead in a copious dose. The poison’s slight
ether smell was lost in the reek of the liquor; and Field, drinking,
gulped down a huge mouthful before he realized that anything was wrong,
if he did at all.
“Mechanically he returned the flask to Barry, who pocketed it and said:
‘I guess I’ll look over these papers more carefully—there’s no reason
why I should trust you, Field....’ Field, who was feeling extremely
disinterested by this time, nodded in a puzzled sort of way and slumped
down in his seat. Barry really did examine the papers but he
watched Field like a hawk out of the corner of his eye all the time. In
about five minutes he saw that Field was out—out for good. He was not
entirely unconscious but well under way; his face was contorted and he
was gasping for breath. He seemed unable to make any violent muscular
movement or outcry. Of course, he’d utterly forgotten Barry—in his
agony—perhaps didn’t remain conscious very long. When he groaned those
few words to Pusak it was the superhuman effort of a practically dead
man....
“Barry now consulted his watch. It was 9:40. He had been with Field
only ten minutes. He had to be back on the stage at 9:50. He decided to
wait three minutes more—it had taken less time than he had figured—to
make sure that Field would not raise a rumpus. At 9:43 exactly, with
Field terribly inanimate in his internal agonies, Barry took Field’s
hat, snapped down his own and slipped it under his cloak, and rose. The
way was clear. Hugging the wall, walking down the aisle as carefully
and unobtrusively as possible, he gained the rear of the leftside boxes
without anyone noticing him. The play was at its highest point of
tension. All eyes were riveted on the stage.
“In the rear of the boxes he ripped off the false hair, rapidly
adjusted his make-up and passed through the stagedoor. The door leads
into a narrow passageway which in turn leads into a corridor, branching
out to various parts of the backstage area. His dressing-room is a few
feet from the entrance to the corridor. He slipped inside, threw his
stage-hat among his regular effects, dashed the remaining contents
of the death-flask into the wash-bowl and cleaned out the flask. He
emptied the contents of the hypodermic into the toilet drain and put
away the needle, cleaned. If it was found—what of it? He had a
perfectly sound excuse for owning it and besides the murder had not
been committed by such an instrument at all.... He was now ready for
his cue, calm, debonair, a little bored. The call came at exactly 9:50,
he went on the stage and was there until the hue-and-cry was raised at
9:55 in the orchestra....”
“Talk about your complicated plots!” ejaculated Sampson.
“It is not so complicated as it seems at first hearing,” returned the
Inspector. “Remember that Barry is an exceptionally clever young man
and above all an excellent actor. No one _but_ an accomplished actor
could have carried off such a plan. The procedure was simple, after
all; his hardest job was to keep to his time-schedule. If he was seen
by any one he was disguised. The only dangerous part of his scheme was
the getaway—when he walked down the aisle and went backstage through
the box stagedoor. The aisle he took care of by keeping an eye out
for the usher while he sat next to Field. He had known beforehand, of
course, that the ushers, due to the nature of the play, kept their
stations more or less faithfully, but he counted on his disguise and
hypodermic to help him through any emergency that might arise. However,
Madge O’Connell was lax in her duty and so even this was in his favor.
He told me last night, not without a certain pride, that he had
prepared for every contingency.... As for the stagedoor, he knew from
experience that at that period in the play’s progress practically every
one was on the stage. The technical men were busy at their stations,
too.... Remember that he planned the crime knowing in advance the exact
conditions under which he would have to operate. And if there was an
element of danger, of uncertainty—well, it was all a risky business,
wasn’t it?—he asked me last night, smiling; and I had to admire him for
his philosophy if for nothing else.”
The Inspector shifted restlessly. “This makes clear, I hope,
just how Barry did the job. As for our investigation.... With the
hat-deductions made and our knowledge of the murderer’s identity, we
still had no inkling of the exact circumstances behind the crime.
If you’ve been keeping in mind the material evidence which we had
collected by Thursday night, you will see that we had nothing at all
with which to work. The best thing we could hope for was that somewhere
among the papers for which all of us were looking was a clue which
would tie up to Barry. Even that would not be enough, but.... So the
next step,” said the Inspector, after a sigh, “was the discovery of
the papers in Field’s neat hiding-place at the top of the bed-canopy
in his apartment. This was Ellery’s work from start to finish. We had
found out that Field had no safety-deposit box, no post-office box, no
outside residence, no friendly neighbor or tradesman, and that the
documents were not in his office. By a process of elimination Ellery
insisted that they must be somewhere in Field’s rooms. You know how
this search ended—an ingenious bit of pure reasoning on Ellery’s part.
We found Morgan’s papers; we found Cronin’s stuff relating to the gang
activities—and by the way, Tim, I’m going to be keenly alive to what
happens when we start on the big clean-up—and we found finally a wad of
miscellaneous papers. Among these were Michaels’ and Barry’s.... You’ll
remember, Tim, that Ellery, from the handwriting analysis business,
deduced that possibly we would find the originals of Barry’s papers—and
so we did.
“Michaels’ case was interesting. That time he went to Elmira on the
‘petty larceny’ charge, it was through Field’s clever manipulations
with the law. But Field had the goods on Michaels and filed the
documentary evidence of the man’s real guilt away in his favorite
hiding-place, in the event that he might wish to use it at some future
date. A very saving person, this Field.... When Michaels was
released from prison Field used him unscrupulously for his dirty work,
holding the threat of those papers over the man’s head.
“Now Michaels had been on the lookout for a long time. He wanted the
papers badly, as you may imagine. At every opportunity he searched the
apartment for them. And when he didn’t find them time after time, he
became desperate. I don’t doubt that Field, in his devilishly sardonic
way, enjoyed the knowledge that Michaels was ransacking the place day
after day.... On Monday night Michaels did what he said he did—went
home and to bed. But early Tuesday morning, when he read the papers and
learned that Field had been killed, he realized that the jig was up. He
had to make one last search for the papers—if he didn’t find them, the
police might and he would be in hot water. So he risked running into
the police net when he returned to Field’s rooms Tuesday morning. The
story about the check was nonsense, of course.
“But let’s get on to Barry. The original papers we found in the hat
marked ‘Miscellaneous’ told a sordid story. Stephen Barry, to make it
short and ugly, has a strain of negroid blood in his veins. He was
born in the South of a poor family and there was definite documentary
evidence—letters, birth-records and the like—to prove that his blood
had the black taint. Now Field, as you know, made it his business to
run things like this to earth. In some way he got hold of the papers,
how long ago we can’t say, but certainly quite a while back. He looked
up Barry’s status at the time and found him to be a struggling actor,
on his uppers more often than he was in funds. He decided to let the
fellow alone for the time. If ever Barry came into money or in the
limelight, there would be time enough to blackmail him.... Field’s
wildest dreams could not have foreseen Barry’s engagement to Frances
Ives-Pope, daughter of a multi-millionaire and blue-blood society
girl. I needn’t explain what it would have meant to Barry to have the
story of his mixed blood become known to the Ives-Popes. Besides—and
this is quite important—Barry was in a constant state of impoverishment
due to his gambling. What money he earned went into the pockets of the