The large carved desk which Hagstrom and Piggott had rifled three days before invited their scrutiny. 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; the old man shuffled abstractedly among the keys, old letters, wallets and then turned away. “Nothing in the desk,” he announced wearily. “I doubt if that clever limb of Satan would have selected anything as obvious as a desk for a hiding-place.” “He would if he’d read his Edgar Allan Poe,” murmured Ellery. “Let’s get on. Sure there is no secret drawer here?” he asked Cronin. The red head was shaken sadly but emphatically. They probed and poked about in the furniture, under the carpets and lamps, in book-ends, curtain-rods. With each successive failure the apparent hopelessness of the search was reflected in their faces. When they had finished with the living-room it looked as if it had innocently fallen into the path of a hurricane—a bare and comfortless satisfaction. “Nothing left but the bedroom, kitchenette and lavatory,” said the Inspector to Cronin; and the three men went into the room which Mrs. Angela Russo had occupied Monday night. Field’s bedroom was distinctly feminine in its accoutrements—a characteristic which Ellery ascribed to the influence of the charming Greenwich Villager. Again they scoured the premises, not an inch of space eluding their vigilant eyes and questing hands; and again there seemed nothing to do but admit failure. They took apart the bedding and examined the spring of the bed; they put it together again and attacked the clothes-closet. Every suit was mauled and crushed by their insistent fingers—bathrobes, dressing-gowns, shoes, cravats. Cronin half-heartedly repeated his examination of the walls and moldings. They lifted rugs and picked up chairs; shook out the pages of the telephone book in the bedside telephone-table. The Inspector even lifted the metal disk which fitted around the steam-pipe at the floor, because it was loose and seemed to present possibilities.