Interlude — In Which the Reader’s Attention Is Respectfully Requested
The current vogue in detective literature is all for the practice of placing the reader in the position of chief sleuth. I have prevailed upon Mr. Ellery Queen to permit at this point in The Roman Hat Mystery the interpolation of a challenge to the reader.... “Who killed Monte Field?” “How was the murder accomplished?”... Mr. Queen agrees with me that the alert student of mystery tales, now being in possession of all the pertinent facts, should at this stage of the story have reached definite conclusions on the questions propounded. The solution—or enough of it to point unerringly to the guilty character—may be reached by a series of logical deductions and psychological observations.... In closing my last personal appearance in the tale let me admonish the reader with a variation of the phrase Caveat Emptor: “Let the reader beware!”
J. J. McC.