Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s

by Leslie S. Klinger

  The smiles were soon wiped away. For the audience began to perceive a curious hesitancy on the part of the actors. Although they continued to recite their lines behind the footlights they were casting puzzled glances out into the orchestra. People, noting this, half-rose from their seats, panicky in the presence of a scented tragedy. The officer’s jovian voice continued to thunder, “Keep your seats, I say! Stay where you are!”

  The audience suddenly realized that the incident was not play-acting but reality. Women shrieked and clutched their escorts. Bedlam broke loose in the balcony, whose occupants were in no position to see anything below.

  The policeman turned savagely to a stocky, foreign-looking man in evening clothes who was standing by, rubbing his hands together.

  “I’ll have to ask you to close every exit this minute and see that they’re kept closed, Mr. Panzer,” he growled. “Station an usher at all the doors and tell ’em to hold everybody tryin’ to get in or out. Send somebody outside to cover the alleys, too, until help comes from the station. Move fast, Mr. Panzer, before hell pops!”

  The swarthy little man hurried away, brushing aside a number of excited people who had disregarded the officer’s bellowed admonition and had jumped up to question him.

  The bluecoat stood wide-legged at the entrance to the last row of the left section, concealing with his bulk the crumpled figure of a man in full evening dress, lying slumped in a queer attitude on the floor between rows. The policeman looked up, keeping a firm grip on the arm of the cowering man at his side, and shot a quick glance toward the rear of the orchestra.

  “Hey, Neilson!” he shouted.

  A tall tow-headed man hustled out of a small room near the main entrance and pushed his way through to the officer. He looked sharply down at the inert figure on the floor.

  “What’s happened here, Doyle?”

  “Better ask this feller here,” replied the policeman grimly. He shook the arm of the man he was holding. “There’s a guy dead, and Mr.”—he bent a ferocious glance upon the shrinking little man—“Pusak, W-William Pusak,” he stammered—“this Mr. Pusak,” continued Doyle, “says he heard him whisper he’d been croaked.”

  Neilson stared at the dead body, stunned.

  The policeman chewed his lip. “I’m in one sweet mess, Harry,” he said hoarsely. “The only cop in the place, and a pack of yellin’ fools to take care of. . . . I want you to do somethin’ for me.”

  “Say the word. . . . This is one hell of a note!”

  Doyle wheeled in a rage to shout to a man who had just risen three rows ahead and was standing on his seat, peering at the proceedings. “Hey you!” he roared. “Get down offa there! Here—get back there, the whole bunch o’ you. Back to your seats, now, or I’ll pinch the whole nosey mob!”

  He turned on Neilson. “Beat it to your desk, Harry, and give headquarters a buzz about the murder,” he whispered. “Tell ’em to bring down a gang—make it a big one. Tell ’em it’s a theatre—they’ll know what to do. And here, Harry—take my whistle and toot your head off outside. I gotta get some help right away.”

  As Neilson fought his way back through the crowd, Doyle shouted after him: “Better ask ’em to send old man Queen down here, Harry!”

  The tow-headed man disappeared into the office. A few moments later a shrill whistle was heard from the sidewalk in front of the theatre.

  The swarthy theatre-manager whom Doyle had commanded to place guards at the exits and alleys came scurrying back through the press. His dress shirt was slightly rumpled and he was mopping his forehead with an air of bewilderment. A woman stopped him as he wriggled his way forward. She squeaked,

  “Why is this policeman keeping us here, Mr. Panzer? I’ve a right to leave, I should like you to know! I don’t care if an accident did happen—I had nothing to do with it—that’s your affair-please tell him to stop this silly disciplining of innocent people!”

  The little man stammered, trying to escape. “Now, madam, please. I’m sure the officer knows what he is doing. A man has been killed here—it is a serious matter. Don’t you see. . . . As manager of the theatre I must follow his orders. Please be calm—have a little patience. . . .”

  He wormed his way out of her grasp and was off before she could protest.

  Doyle, his arms waving violently, stood on a seat and bellowed: “I told you to sit down and keep quiet, the pack o’ you! I don’t care if you’re the Mayor himself, you—yeah, you there, in the monocle—stay down or I’ll shove you down! Don’t you people realize what’s happened? Pipe down, I say!” He jumped to the floor, muttering as he wiped the perspiration from his cap-band.

  In the turmoil and excitement, with the orchestra boiling like a huge kettle, and necks stretched over the railing of the balcony as the people there strove vainly to discover the cause of the confusion, the abrupt cessation of activity on the stage was forgotten by the audience. The actors had stammered their way through lines rendered meaningless by the drama before the footlights. Now the slow descent of the curtain put an end to the evening’s entertainment. The actors, chattering, hurried toward the stage-stairs. Like the audience they peered toward the nucleus of the trouble in bewilderment.

  A buxom old lady, in garish clothes—the very fine imported actress billed in the character of Madame Murphy, “keeper of the public house”—her name was Hilda Orange; the slight, graceful figure of “the street waif, Nanette”—Eve Ellis, leading-lady of the piece; the tall robust hero of “Gunplay,” James Peale, attired in a rough tweed suit and cap; the juvenile, smart in evening clothes, portraying the society lad who had fallen into the clutches of the “gang”—Stephen Barry; Lucille Horton, whose characterization of the “lady of the streets” had brought down a shower of adjectives from the dramatic critics, who had little enough to rant about that unfortunate season; a vandyked17 old man whose faultless evening clothes attested to the tailoring genius of M. Le Brun, costumer extraordinary to the entire cast of “Gunplay”; the heavy-set villain, whose stage scowl was dissolved in a foggy docility as he surveyed the frantic auditorium; in fact, the entire personnel of the play, bewigged and powdered, rouged and painted—some wielding towels as they hastily removed their make-up—scampered in a body under the lowering curtain and trooped down the stage-steps into the orchestra, where they elbowed their way up the aisle toward the scene of the commotion.

  Another flurry, at the main entrance, caused many people despite Doyle’s vigorous orders to rise in their seats for a clearer view. A group of bluecoats were hustling their way inside, their night-sticks ready. Doyle heaved a gargantuan sigh of relief as he saluted the tall man in plainclothes at their head.

  “What’s up, Doyle?” asked the newcomer, frowning at the pandemonium raging about them. The bluecoats who had entered with him were herding the crowd to the rear of the orchestra, behind the seat-sections. People who had been standing tried to slip back to their seats; they were apprehended and made to join the angry cluster jammed behind the last row.

  “Looks like this man’s been murdered, Sergeant,” said Doyle.

  “Uh-huh.” The plainclothes man looked incuriously down at the one still figure in the theatre lying at their feet, a black-sleeved arm flung over his face, his legs sprawled gawkily under the seats in the row before.

  “What is it—gat?”18 asked the newcomer of Doyle, his eyes roving.

  “No, sir—don’t seem to be,” said the policeman. “Had a doctor from the audience look him over the very first thing—thinks it’s poison.”

  The Sergeant grunted. “Who’s this?” he rapped, indicating the trembling figure of Pusak by Doyle’s side.

  “Chap who found the body,” returned Doyle. “He hasn’t moved from the spot since.”

  “Good enough.” The detective turned toward a compact group huddled a few feet behind them and asked, generally: “Who’s the manager here?”

  Panzer stepped forward.

  “I’m Velie, detective-sergeant from headquarters,” said the p
lainclothes man abruptly. “Haven’t you done anything to keep this yelling pack of idiots quiet?”

  “I’ve done my best, Sergeant,” mumbled the manager, wringing his hands. “But they all seem incensed at the way this officer”—he indicated Doyle apologetically—“has been storming at them. I don’t know how I can reasonably expect them to keep sitting in their seats as if nothing had happened.”

  “Well, we’ll take care of that,” snapped Velie. He gave a rapid order to a uniformed man nearby. “Now”—he turned back to Doyle—“how about the doors, the exits? Done anything yet in that direction?”

  “Sure thing, Sergeant,” grinned the policeman. “I had Mr. Panzer here station ushers at every door. They’ve been there all night, anyway. But I just wanted to make sure.”

  “You were right. Nobody try to get out?”

  “I think I can vouch for that, Sergeant,” put in Panzer meekly. “The action of the play necessitates having ushers posted near every exit, for atmosphere. This is a crook play, with a good deal of shooting and screaming and that sort of thing going on, and the presence of guards around the doors heightens the general effect of mystery. I can very easily find out for you if . . .”

  “We’ll attend to that ourselves,” said Velie. “Doyle, who’d you send for?”

  “Inspector Queen,” answered Doyle. “I had the publicity man, Neilson, ’phone him at headquarters.”

  Velie allowed a smile to crease his wintry face. “Thought of everything, didn’t you? Now how about the body? Has it been touched at all since this fellow found it?”

  The cowering man held in Doyle’s hard grasp broke out, half-crying. “I—I only found him, officer—honest to God, I—”

  “All right, all right,” said Velie coldly. “You’ll keep, won’t you? What are you blubbering about? Well, Doyle?”

  “Not a finger was laid on the body since I came over,” replied Doyle, with a trace of pride in his voice. “Except, of course, for a Dr. Stuttgard. I got him out of the audience to make sure the man was dead. He was, and nobody else came near.”

  “You’ve been busy, haven’t you, Doyle? I’ll see you won’t suffer by it,” said Velie. He wheeled on Panzer, who shrank back. “Better trot up to the stage and make an announcement, Mr. Manager. The whole crew of ’em are to stay right where they are until Inspector Queen lets them go home—understand? Tell them it won’t do any good to kick—and the more they kick the longer they’ll be here. Make it plain, too, that they’re to stick to their seats, and any suspicious move on anybody’s part is going to make trouble.”

  “‘Yes. Yes. Good Lord, what a catastrophe!” groaned Panzer as he made his way down the aisle toward the stage.

  At the same moment a little knot of people pushed open the big door at the rear of the theatre and stepped across the carpet in a body.

  12.September 24 was a Monday in 1923. September 23 does not fall on a Monday again in the 1920s until 1928, after publication of this book.

  13.Indeed, one of the prolific American dramatist’s plays appeared on Broadway every season from 1917 to 1934, with the sole exception of 1923.

  14.Today, the Great White Way (so named for its early adoption of arc lighting in 1880, one of the first streets in America to be electrically lit) includes only Manhattan playhouses located in the area between the Avenue of the Americas and Ninth Avenue and from West 41st Street to West 53rd Street. Columbus Circle is at 59th St., now slightly farther uptown than the theater district.

  15.There was not in 1923 nor has there ever been a Roman Theatre in Manhattan; and no drama named Gunplay ever ran on Broadway. Can the real Roman Theatre be identified? The name selected as an alias (the Roman) may be a hint, suggesting candidates among contemporary Broadway venues that would include the Coliseum (much too large and located at 181st St.), the Hippodrome (even larger), the Empire (236 West 42nd St.), and the Olympic (small and on East 14th, near 3rd Ave.). The other strong clue is the stated location on 47th St.

  The Empire is a candidate with mixed qualifications. Built in 1912, it was hardly “one of Broadway’s newest,” and it was on 42nd St., not 47th St. (though it was definitely west of Broadway). A seating chart is reproduced here, and, comparing it to Ellery’s diagram of the Roman Theatre (p. 515), the Empire appears to be significantly smaller. However, The Woman on the Jury, by Bernard K. Burns (a play in which gunshots are heard), was running at the Empire in the autumn of 1923, and the play closed at around the time of the conclusion of The Roman Hat Mystery.

  Seating plan of Empire Theatre from Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac 1927.

  Turning to theatres actually located on 47th St., in 1923 there were only two. The Palace was at 1564 Broadway (at 47th St.), on the east side of the White Way. It was devoted to vaudeville. However, the Central Theatre, at 1567 Broadway (at 47th St.), was west of Broadway. Built by the Schuberts in 1918, it also fits the description of “one of Broadway’s newest”—only a few of the dozens of Broadway theaters were newer. A seating chart of the Central Theatre is reproduced here. Comparing it to the diagram of the Roman Theatre, it can be seen that the Roman Theatre, while similarly laid out, was larger than the Central Theatre. Furthermore, no play was running at the Central Theatre in September 1923.

  Seating plan of Central Theatre from Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac 1927.

  In short, no candidate meets all of the criteria of location, name, size, and history. Not only did J. J. McC. conceal the name and location of the actual theater, it appears that even the name of the play involved in the case was changed—presumably to protect the cast and crew members from unwanted notoriety.

  16.Gangsters had long been a popular subject of films, even before Prohibition sparked speakeasies, illicit sources of alcohol, and fueled the spread of gangsterism. One of the first gangster films was D. W. Griffith’s The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), about organized crime. Outdoor scenes were shot in gang territory, the Lower East Side of New York, depicting slum tenements, and allegedly some of the cast included actual gang members. Legendary director Raoul Walsh’s first feature film was the crime drama The Regeneration (1915). Shot in the Bowery on the Lower East Side of New York, it highlighted lawless violence on the streets of New York.

  Gangsters had also appeared on the stage, only a year before the opening of Gunplay. In William A. Page’s The Bootleggers, which ran for a month in late 1922 at Broadway’s 39th St. Theatre, a battle is waged between gangsters who control the liquor trade on the East Side and the West Side of Manhattan. Before The Roman Hat Mystery appeared, two other gangster plays did well on Broadway: William Anthony McGuire’s Twelve Miles Out (also about bootleggers), which ran for six months at the Playhouse Theatre on West 48th St., beginning on November 16, 1925; and Broadway, by Philip Dunning and George Abbott (still more bootleggers), which ran for 603 performances beginning on September 16, 1926, at the Broadhurst Theatre on West 44th St. (the latter was revived unsuccessfully at the Royale Theatre on West 45th St. in 1987, where it ran for only three performances).

  17.A “Van Dyke” style of facial hair, named after the Dutch painter Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), consisted of a moustache and goatee.

  Self-portrait of Anthony van Dyck (van Dyke), after 1633.

  18.Slang for a gun, and more specifically a machine gun, the weapon of choice of gangsters in the 1920s. The name derives from the Gatling gun, a rapid-fire, crank-driven weapon with a cylindrical cluster of barrels. Invented by Richard Gatling, it was used by Union forces in the Civil War.

  CHAPTER II

  In Which One Queen Works and Another Queen Watches

  There was nothing remarkable in either the physique or the manner of Inspector Richard Queen. He was a small, withered, rather mild-appearing old gentleman. He walked with a little stoop and an air of deliberation that somehow accorded perfectly with his thick grey hair and mustaches, veiled grey eyes and slender hands.

  As he crossed the carpet with short, quick steps Inspector Queen was far from impressive to the milli
ng eyes that observed his approach from every side. And yet, so unusual was the gentle dignity of his appearance, so harmless and benevolent the smile that illumined his lined old face, that an audible rustle swept over the auditorium, preceding him in a strangely fitting manner.

  In his own men the change was appreciable. Doyle retreated into a corner near the left exits. Detective-Sergeant Velie, poised over the body—sardonic, cold, untouched by the near-hysteria about him—relaxed a trifle, as if he were satisfied to relinquish his place in the sun. The bluecoats guarding the aisles saluted with alacrity. The nervous, muttering, angry audience sank back with an unreasoning relief.

  Inspector Queen stepped forward and shook hands with Velie.

  “Too bad, Thomas, my boy. I hear you were going home when this happened,” he murmured. To Doyle he smiled in a fatherly fashion. Then, in a mild pity, he peered down at the man on the floor. “Thomas,” he asked, “are all the exits covered?” Velie nodded.

  The old man turned back and let his eyes travel interestedly about the scene. He asked a low-voiced question of Velie, who nodded his head in assent; then he crooked his finger at Doyle.

  “Doyle, where are the people who were sitting in these seats?” He pointed to three chairs adjoining the dead man’s and four directly to the front of them in the preceding row.

  The policeman appeared puzzled. “Didn’t see anybody there, Inspector. . . .”

  Queen stood silent for a moment, then waved Doyle back with the low remark to Velie, “In a crowded house, too. . . . Remember that.” Velie raised his eyebrows gravely. “I’m cold on this whole business,” continued the Inspector genially. “All I can see right now are a dead man and a lot of perspiring people making noise. Have Hesse and Piggott direct traffic for a while, eh, son?’“

  Velie spoke sharply to two of the plainclothes men who had entered the theatre with the Inspector. They wriggled their way toward the rear and the people who had been crowding around found themselves pushed aside. Policemen joined the two detectives. The group of actors and actresses were ordered to move back. A section was roped off behind the central tier of seats and some fifty men and women packed into the small space. Quiet men circulated among them, instructing them to show their tickets and return to their seats one by one. Within five minutes not a member of the audience was left standing. The actors were cautioned to remain within the roped enclosure for the time being.