The audience were talking amongst themselves, screams and shouts having given way to nervous laughter, and soon the curtain opened again. An attractive blond woman in a white evening gown stood with an expression as blank as death and a noose dangling nearby, the rope disappearing upward. Her hands were tied before her.

The audience, transfixed, stared at her. The only sound in the room was that of breathing.

The parson walked out on stage slowly, deliberately. He carried a hood. He placed it over her head, her shoulder-length blond hair hanging out from around the bottom of the hood. He placed the noose around her neck. Cinched it tight, behind her left ear.

The pastor stepped to one side. He raised his hand in a signaling fashion; when he brought it down, the blonde plunged suddenly down and out of sight, through a trapdoor. The rope pulled tight. Then it swayed.

The audience was still gasping as the curtains closed.

When they opened again, the pastor was on stage, smiling and gesturing to the thin young prisoner, who smiled and bowed, and the blond woman, who did the same. The audience applauded wildly; some whistled. Some people even stood up.

The lights came on, and the pastor, speaking for the first time, directed the audience into a section of the tent declared to be "The Front Page Museum of Crime." Several display cases held guns and clothing labeled as having belonged to John Dillinger and his associates. A shot-up car, roped off, was labeled the Bonnie and Clyde "Death Car." Another glass case bore three death masks, three male faces, painted rather garishly, as if wearing feminine makeup. Their expressions were placid, strangely innocent, almost angelic. A large sign within the case, behind the frozen faces, said in large black block letters: "Do You Know Us? Any One of Us?" In smaller print, information was given about whom to contact at the Cleveland police department, making mention of the $5,000 reward posted by the city council.