The Roman Hat Mystery

are dealing with eight seats⁠—one in which Field sat, for which we have the stub found on Field’s person; one in which the murderer sat, for which we have the stub found by Flint; and finally the six empty seats for which tickets were bought, as established by the box-office report, and for which stubs were not found, torn or whole, anywhere in the theatre or box-office. First of all, it is barely possible that all of those six whole tickets were in the theatre Monday night, and went out of the theatre on somebody’s person. Remember, the search of individuals was necessarily not so exhaustive as to include an examination for small things like tickets. This, however, is highly improbable. The best explanation is that either Field or his murderer bought all eight tickets at one time, intending to use two and reserving the other six to insure absolute privacy during the short time that the business was to be transacted. In this case, the most sensible thing to have done was to destroy the tickets as soon as they were bought; which was probably done by either Field or the murderer, according to who made the arrangements. We must, therefore, forget those six tickets⁠—they’re gone and we’ll never get our hands on them.

“To proceed,” continued the Inspector. “We know that Field and his victim entered the theatre separately. This may positively be deduced from the fact that when I put the two stubs back to front, the torn edges did not match. When two people enter together, the tickets are presented together and are invariably torn together. Now⁠—this does not say that they did not come in at practically the same time, because for purposes of safety they may have come in one after the other, as if they did not know each other. However, Madge O’Connell claims no one sat in LL30 during Act I, and the orangeade-boy, Jess Lynch, testified that ten minutes after Act II had started, there was still no one in LL30. This means that the murderer either had not yet entered the theatre, or he had come in before but was sitting in some other part of the orchestra, having a ticket necessarily for another seat.”

Ellery shook his head. “I realize that as well as you, son,” said the old man testily. “I’m just following the thought through. I was going to say that it doesn’t seem likely the murderer had come into the theatre at the regular time. It’s probable that he entered at least ten minutes after the second act started.”

“I can give you a proof of that,” said Ellery lazily.

The Inspector took a pinch of snuff. “I know⁠—those cabalistic figures on the program. How did they read?

930

815

50,000

“We know what the fifty-thousand represented. The other two figures must have referred not to dollars, but to time. Look at the ‘815.’ The play started at 8:25. In all likelihood Field arrived about 8:15, or if he arrived sooner, he had some cause to refer to his watch at that time. Now, if he had an appointment with someone who, we assume, arrived much later, what more likely than that Field should have idly jotted down on his program⁠—first, the ’50,000,’ which indicates that he was thinking about the impending transaction, which involved $50,000 in blackmail; then 8:15, the time he was thinking about it; and finally 9:30⁠—the time the blackmail victim was due to arrive! It’s the most natural thing in the world for Field to have done this, as it would be for anyone who is in the habit of scribbling in idle moments. It’s very fortunate for us, because it points to two things: first, to the exact time of the appointment with the murderer⁠—9:30; and, second, it corroborates our conjecture as regards the actual time the murder was committed. At 9:25 Lynch saw Field alive and alone; at 9:30, by Field’s written evidence, the murderer was due to arrive, and we take it for granted he did; according to Dr. Jones’ statement it would take the poison from fifteen to twenty minutes to kill Field⁠—and in view of Pusak’s discovery at 9:55 of the dead body, we may say that the poison was administered about 9:35. If the tetra ethyl lead took at the most twenty minutes⁠—that gives us 9:55. Much before then, of course, the murderer left the scene of the crime. Remember⁠—he could not have known that our friend Mr. Pusak would suddenly desire to rise and leave his seat. The murderer was probably figuring that Field’s body would not be discovered until the intermission, at 10:05, which would have been ample time for Field to have died without being able to murmur any message at all. Luckily for our mysterious murderer Field was discovered too late to gasp more than the information that he’d been murdered. If Pusak had walked out five minutes earlier we’d have our elusive friend behind the bars right now.”

“Bravo!” murmured Ellery, smiling affectionately. “A perfect recitation. My congratulations.”

“Oh, go jump in the bathtub,” growled his father. “At this point I just want to repeat what you brought out Monday night in Panzer’s office⁠—the fact that although the murderer quitted the scene of the crime between 9:30 and 9:55, he was present in the theatre all the rest of the evening until we allowed everybody to go home. Your examination of the guards and the O’Connell girl, together with the doormen’s evidence, Jess Lynch’s presence in the alley, the usher’s corroboration of this fact and all the rest of it, takes care of that.⁠ ⁠… He was there, all right.

“This leaves us momentarily up a tree. All we can do now is consider some of the personalities we’ve bumped into in the course of the investigation,” went on the Inspector with a sigh. “First⁠—did Madge O’Connell tell the truth when she said she had seen no one pass up or down the aisle during the second act? And that she