“The pleasant profession of this historic individual was assassination; and some historians now believe that genuine occult power played a part in his dreadful record—a record which terminated only when the infantry of Genghis Khan took Mount Alamout by storm and hanged the Old Man of the Mountain and burned his body under a boulder of You-Stone.
“For Miss Norne’s performance there appears to be no plausible, practical or scientific explanation.
“During her performance the curtain will remain lowered for fifteen minutes and will then rise on the last act of ‘You Betcha Life.’”
The noisy show continued while Cleves, paying it scant attention, brooded over the programme. And ever his keen, grey eyes reverted to her name, Tressa Norne.
Then, for a little while, he settled back and let his absent gaze wander over the galloping battalions of painted girls and the slapstick principals whose perpetual motion evoked screams of approbation from the audience amid the din of the great god Jazz.
He had an aisle seat; he disturbed nobody when he went out and around to the stage door.
The aged man on duty took his card, called a boy and sent it off. The boy returned with the card, saying that Miss Norne had already dressed and departed.
Cleves tipped him and then tipped the doorman heavily.
“Where does she live?” he asked.
“Say,” said the old man, “I dunno, and that’s straight. But them ladies mostly goes up to the roof for a look in at the ‘Moonlight Masque’ and a dance afterward. Was you ever up there?”