“Excellent, Chick! Grease paint is a wonderful transformer—if you know how to use it. You have changed all your features. When that fellow downstairs sees you, he’ll think it’s himself.”
“Or his ghost!” said Chick, with a smile.
“Ghost!” repeated the chief. “That’s it exactly. Haven’t you wondered what we are doing all this for?”
“I supposed you had your reasons,” replied Chick humbly.
“I have. I’m going to scare that fellow into telling the truth, if I can. If he isn’t the real Howard Milmarsh, I’m in hopes I’ll make him confess the fraud.”
“But suppose he is the real one, how will you work it then?”
“That’s a question,” answered the detective soberly. “But I do not expect to be called on to answer that. Now, put a little talcum powder on your cheeks, so that you will look a little more ghostly.”
“How about a smudge of phosphorus? Here’s some in this box. The old gentleman certainly did not overlook anything.”
“It might add still more ghostliness to the general effect,” assented Nick. “Rub some on your cheeks and hands, and I will do the same.”