Explore "The Roman Hat Mystery" by Ellery Queen on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On Tuesday evening, October second, promptly at 11: 30 p.m., a tall man wearing a soft black hat and a black overcoat, the collar pulled up around his face to keep out the raw night-air, sauntered out of the lobby of a small hotel on 53rd Street near Seventh Avenue and proceeded at a sharp pace up Seventh Avenue toward Central Park.
Arrived at 59th Street he turned to the east and made his way along the deserted thoroughfare in the direction of Fifth Avenue. When he reached the Fifth Avenue entrance to Central Park, off the Plaza circle, he stopped in the shadow of one of the big concrete corner-posts and leaned back idly. As he lit a cigarette the flare from the match illumined his face. It was that of an elderly man, a trifle lined. A grizzled mustache drooped in a straggling line from his upper lip. Under his hat a grey patch of hair was visible. Then the light from the match flickered out.