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Midway of the lighted space the ghost raised its averted head and looked out full, not at the quivering Macbeth, but, with steady eyes and set, impassive face, into the body of the darkened little theatre. In an instant the sheeted form was gone–gone so quickly that perhaps no keen-eyed juvenile in the audience detected the artifice by which, through a skilful scissoring and grafting and doctoring of the original film, the face of the actor who played the dead and walking Duncan had been replaced by the photographed face, printed so often in the newspapers, of murdered Old Man Steinway!

There was a man near the centre of the house who got instantly upon his legs and stumbling, indeed almost running in his haste, made up the centre aisle for the door; and in the daylight which strengthened as he neared the open, it might be seen that he wore the look of one stunned by a sudden blighting shock. And at once Green and Cassidy were noisily up too, and following close behind him, their nerves a-tingle.

All unconscious of surveillance, the suspect was out of the door, on the pavement, when they closed on him. At the touch of Cassidy’s big hand upon his shoulder he spun round, staring at them with wide-open, startled eyes. Above his scraggy beard his face was dappled white and red in patches, and under the mottled skin little muscles twitched visibly.

“What–what do you want?” he demanded in a shaken, quick voice. A gold-capped tooth showed in his upper jaw between his lips.

“We want a word or two with you,” said Cassidy, with a sort of threatening emphasis.

“Are you–are you officers?” He got the question out with a separate gulp for each separate word.

“Not exactly,” answered Cassidy, and tightened his grip on the other’s shoulder the least bit more firmly. “But we can call one mighty easy if you ain’t satisfied to talk to us a minute or two. There’s one yonder.”

He ducked his head toward where, forty yards distant, a middle-aged and somewhat pursy patrolman was shepherding the traffic that eddied in small whirls about the steps of the subway terminal.

“All right, all right,” assented the captive eagerly. “I’ll talk to you. Let’s go over there–where it’s quiet.” He pointed a wavering finger, with a glistening, highly polished nail on it, toward the opposite side of the street; there the park came right up to the sidewalk and ended. They went, and in a minute all three of them were grouped close up to the shrub-lined boundary. The mottled-faced man was in the middle. Green stood on one side of him and Cassidy on the other, shouldering up so close that they blocked him off, flank and front.

“Now, then, we’re all nice and cozy,” said Cassidy with a touch of that irony which a cat often displays, in different form, upon capturing a live mouse. “And we want to ask you a few questions. What’s your name–your real name?” he demanded roughly.

“Morrison,” said the man, licking with his tongue to moisten his lips.

“Did you say Maxwell?” asked Cassidy, shooting out his syllables hard and straight.

“No, no–I said Morrison.” The man looked as though he were going to collapse then and there.

“One name’s as good as another, I guess, ain’t it?” went on the detective. “Well, what’s your business?”

“My business?” He was parrying as though seeking time to collect his scattered wits. “Oh, I haven’t any business–I’ve been sick lately.”

“Oh, you’ve been sick lately–well, you look sick right now.” Cassidy shoved his hands in his pockets and with a bullying, hectoring air pushed his face, with the lower jaw undershot, into the suspect’s face. “Say, was it because you felt sick that you came out of that there moving-picture show so sudden?”

Just as he had calculated, the other jumped at the suggestion.

“Yes–yes,” he nodded nervously. “That was it–the heat in there made me faint.” He braced himself tauter. “Say,” he said, and tried to put force into his tones, “what business have you men got spying on me and asking me these things? I’m a free American citizen—-“