A wisp of blue smoke drifted above a billiard table.
III.
The police dragnet for the slayer of Cardello was far flung, and zest was added to the man hunt by the offer of $1,000 reward. Throughout the Italian quarter, Basco spread the story of Guisseppi’s recrudescence and his ghostly revenge.
The superstitious residents accepted the weird tale with simple faith. Fear of the phantom became rife. Children remained indoors after dark. Pedestrians quickened their pace when passing lonely spots at night. Turning a corner suddenly, they half-expected to come face to face with Guisseppi’s ghost, wry-necked from the hangman’s noose.
Policeman Rafferty, traveling beat in the neighborhood of Death Corners, was told time and again that Guisseppi’s ghost had murdered Cardello. Yes, it was true. Basco had seen the phantom. Others in the colony had seen it slipping like a shadow through some deserted street at night. There was no doubt that Guisseppi had come back from the dead.
Policeman Rafferty laughed. When had ghosts started in bumping off live folks? That was what he would like to know. How could the poor simpletons believe such stuff? Funny lot of jobbies, these dagoes!
But when Policeman Rafferty had heard the story of Guisseppi’s ghost for the thousandth time, he scratched his head and did a little thinking, not forgetting the $1,000 reward. Guisseppi was dead. Of course. He had been hanged, and the newspapers had been full of the stories of his execution. So Guisseppi couldn’t have killed Cardello. That was out of the question. But could it be possible that dead Guisseppi had a living double? Hah!
Policeman Rafferty got in touch with his favorite stool-pigeon without delay. Shortly thereafter, that worthy laid before him a piece of information which Policeman Rafferty was welcome to for just what it was worth and no more. Guisseppi’s ghost had been seen oftenest in the immediate neighborhood of Guisseppi’s father’s residence. If the fool copper thought he could put a pinch over on a ghost, he might do well to search Guisseppi’s old home.
So Policeman Rafferty eased himself one day through a narrow passageway, burst in suddenly at the kitchen door and started to search the premises.
He found Guisseppi whiffing a cigaret in a front room.