You would not guess, looking at him, that he was physically powerful, but he was. Despite a certain collegiate look, he had not earned his physique on a playing field, but in the Pullman plant on Chicago's South Side where he worked as a young man. Daily workouts on a handball court and jujitsu training kept him fit now. He didn't smoke. He did drink. Too much, at times, he knew.

He had gone hatless tonight-his only nod to the balmy evening-and as he hesitated before the tent of "The Front Page," he brushed a comma of brown hair back to its temporary place while he studied several sandwich board signs that bore mock newspaper front pages. MAN DIES IN ELECTRIC CHAIR! one headline said; WOMAN HANGED TILL DEAD! said another. The largest of all said. TORSO KILLER DEATH MASKS INSIDE! He bought a ticket at the booth and went in.

Attendance at the expo in general might have been off tonight, but the benches inside this tent were jammed. Ness found a place to sit at the end of one bench and got a funny, "Why the suit, mister?" look from the straw-hatted apparent farmer he sat next to before the lights dimmed.

A velvet curtain parted and revealed, centerstage, an electric chair much like ones Ness had seen in use in prisons. A pale, heavyset man in black, wearing a black string tie, looking like a parson, led a pale, thin fellow in a gray-and-white-striped prison uniform to the chair. The "prisoner" sat in the chair and allowed the parson to place the electrical cap upon his head. The parson then walked to one side of the stage, to an apparatus that included three large switches. Then he threw each switch, to much electrical sparking, much convulsing by the thin fellow in the chair, and much noise from the startled audience. An acrid smell filled the tent. The prisoner slumped in the chair. The velvet curtain closed.