Mr. Smith's Hat

Inspector McKee #6

by Helen Reilly

from the back cover:
"My God! The G.W.W...."
Those were the last words in Gilbert Shannon's diary. A fatal blow on the head ended the sentence for him - and McKee was faced with another unsolvable puzzle.
But what did the strange words mean?
A clod of earth that bloomed into a rare flower, a cancelled ticket to a summer resort sold to a man who never arrived, and the battered hat of a drunken derelict finally put McKee on the trail of the killer. Was it one of the very social ladies at Seers Lake? Or one of their husbands — or lovers? Proof was still lacking when the clever slayer struck again...

Genres: Mystery

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Helen Reilly was an American novelist. She was born Helen Kieran and grew up in New York City in a literary family. Her brother, James Kieran, also wrote a mystery, and two of her daughters, Ursula Curtiss and Mary McMullen, are mystery writers.

Reilly's early books were police procedurals based on her research into the New York Homicide squad. Her most popular character is Inspector Christopher McKee. Reilly also used the pseudonym Kieran Abbey.

Reviews

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pulp western writer and hard drinker Gilbert Shannon is found dead in a squalid little apartment in New York City. It looks like a pure case of accident due to a drunken slip, but one of Inspector McKee's men isn't satisfied. You see, there's this clump of dried mud that he found in the dead man's room and no way to explain how it got there. Shannon's shoes had no mud. There was no mud anywhere else. An analysis of the mud reveals it to be garden dirt with two cat hairs, bits of a bird feather, and a seed. McKee tells his man to plant the seed and see what grows out of it. What they get is a rare zebra zinnia and a murder case. Well...three murders once all is said and done.

While waiting for his seed to grow, Detective Frisch attends the funeral where he runs into the titular Mr. Smith and his hat. When he first notices Smith, the detective thinks the man is overcome with emotion. Then he realizes the man isn't crying...he's laughing. Soon McKee and Frisch are tying to figure out what Smith has to do with Shannon's murder. Then after the seed has produced the rare zinnia and a meticulous search has revealed that it must have come from Seers Lake in in Connecticut, McKee's attention is drawn to a group staying up at the lake. He heads out there just in time to discover that one of the group, the Baroness von Ridingsvard has been killed in, of all places, a private zoo monkey room. McKee is convinced that the murders are connected, but the district attorney is not so sure and throws his weight around a bit (trying to clear up the, to him, more important case in the country) and puts the killer even more on his guard. But McKee's bulldog tenacity keeps him on track and the details of police work will prove that the Scotsman is correct. He'll have to figure out the significance of a railway ticket, a missing photograph, an old writing desk, and the last entry in Shannon's diary before he'll have all the evidence needed to put the right suspect behind bars.

The story begins with the tail-end of another case--an interesting opening. "The lady who admitted having too heavy a hand with arsenic in her husband's jelly roll was led weeping from the room." The subtle black humor of the full scene makes me wish that Reilly had given us the complete story of The Case of the Arsenic Jelly Roll (with more mystification, of course). But the story she did provide was a pretty good one. Lots of atmosphere in the country setting. McKee being good an mysterious about his clues. A couple of chase scenes. And death in a monkey room. What more could you want?

Reilly was very good at giving the reader the finer details of police procedurals without boring us to death with all the routine. And Inspector McKee is an interesting detective. He seems to produce results out of nothing...but then he does give the facts that led him to the conclusions. Definitely a good start to my intended binge on 1936 mysteries for the next week or so. ★★★ and 1/2 (rounded up here)

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting portions of review.

[Joel · Rating 1 out of 5]

A frustrating combination of illogical actions, improbabilities, and dull writing. Why there is a roomful of monkeys is never explained, nor are half the deductions or clues. The police are able to associate the baroness' young companion in Atlantic City with fiance of the writer's daughter in Connecticut. How they make this connection is not explained. The police are able to track down the baroness' small portable writing desk, purchased 29 years before in 1906, despite the factory being gone and no records surviving. How? Not explained. The shop owner who remembers selling the desk in 1906 happens to have a ledger listing the name of everyone who bought a beer at her husband's pub that same day. Why would anyone have this? Not explained. Why can an inspector at a New York City precinct take over a Connecticut murder investigation? Not explained.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A death in New York is clearly an accident, until an eager young policeman finds a clue and brings it to Inspector McKee. But the clue takes a long time to develop, and meanwhile the police commissioner's nephew goes to spend a weekend with the victim's widow and her friends, discovering a dead body shortly after he arrives. McKee and his men have no business working in Connecticut, but they find a way to cooperate with the State Police there. There are leads and dead ends, but a murderer waiting at the end of the trail.