In the living-room the four men proceeded to make a hurried but thorough search. At the Inspector’s command Hagstrom and Piggott went through the drawers of a carved desk in one corner of the room. Ellery was interestedly riffling the pages of the book on character through handwriting. Queen prowled restlessly about, poking his head into a clothes-closet just inside the room, off the foyer. This was a commodious storage compartment for clothes—assorted topcoats, overcoats, capes and the like hung from a rack. The Inspector rifled the pockets. A few miscellaneous articles—handkerchiefs, keys, old personal letters, wallets—came to light. These he put to one side. A top shelf held several hats. “Ellery—hats,” he grunted. Ellery quickly crossed the room, stuffing into his pocket the book he had been reading. His father pointed out the hats meaningly; together they reached up to examine them. There were four—a discolored Panama, two fedoras, one gray and one brown, and a derby. All bore the imprint of Browne Bros. The two men turned the hats over in their hands. Both noticed immediately that three of them had no linings—the Panama and the two fedoras. The fourth hat, an excellent derby, Queen examined critically. He felt the lining, turned down the leather sweat-band, then shook his head. “To tell the truth, Ellery,” he said slowly, “I’ll be switched if I know why I should expect to find clues in these hats. We know that Field wore a tophat last night and obviously it would be impossible for that hat to be in these rooms. According to our findings the murderer was still in the theatre when we arrived. Ritter was down here by eleven o’clock. The hat therefore _couldn’t_ have been brought to this place. For that matter, what earthly reason would the murderer have for such an action, even if it were physically possible for him to do it? He must have realized that we would search Field’s apartment at once. No, I guess I’m feeling a little off-color, Ellery. There’s nothing to be squeezed out of these hats.” He threw the derby back onto the shelf disgustedly. Ellery stood thoughtful and unsmiling. “You’re right enough, dad; these hats mean nothing. But I have the strangest feeling.... By the way!” He straightened up and took off his pince-nez. “Did it occur to you last night that something else belonging to Field might have been missing besides the hat?” “I wish they were all as easy to answer as that,” said Queen grimly. “Certainly—a walking-stick. But what could I do about that? Working on the premise that Field brought one with him—it would have been simple enough for some one who had entered the theatre without a walking-stick to leave the theatre with Field’s. And how could we stop him or identify the stick? So I didn’t even bother thinking about it. And if it’s still on the Roman premises, Ellery, it will keep—no fear about that.”