Ellery crossed his legs comfortably. “As you might have guessed, the search of the audience was entirely without result. Nothing out of the way was found. Not one solitary thing. Nobody looked guilty, and nobody took it upon himself to confess. In other words, it was a complete fiasco.” “Of course, of course,” said Queen. “There’s somebody almighty clever behind this business. I suppose you didn’t even come across the suspicion of an extra hat?” “That, dad,” remarked Ellery, “was what I was decorating the lobby for. No—no hat.” “Are they all through out there?” “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 we’re up a tree, eh?” muttered the Inspector. “Here’s the story, Henry.” And he gave a concise resume of the evening’s events to Sampson, who sat silently throughout, frowning. “And that,” concluded Queen, after describing briefly the scenes enacted in the little office, “is that. Now, Henry, you must have something to tell us about Monte Field. We know that he was a slick article—but that’s all we do know.” “That would be putting it mildly,” said Sampson savagely. “I can give you almost by rote the story of his life. It looks to me as if you’re going to have a difficult time and some incident in his past might give you a clue. “Field first came under the scrutiny of my office during my predecessor’s regime. He was suspected of negotiating a swindle connected with the bucket-shop scandals. Cronin, an assistant D.A. at the time, couldn’t get a thing on him. Field had covered his operations well. All we had was the telltale story, which might or might not have been true, of a ‘stool-pigeon’ who had been kicked out of the mob. Of course, Cronin never let on to Field directly or indirectly that he was under suspicion. The affair blew over and although Cronin was a bulldog, every time he thought he had something he found that he had nothing after all. Oh, no question about it—Field was slick.