Ellery smiled in a thoughtful manner, but said nothing. He was thinking to himself that the old man had not completely satisfied the objection, and that this was a strange thing in a man of Inspector Queen’s direct habits of thought.... But Queen was continuing. “Very well. We must always bear in mind the further possibility that the person with whom Field transacted his business was _not_ his murderer. Of course, this is merely a possibility. The crime seems to have been too well planned for that. But if this _is_ so, then we must look for _two_ people in the audience Monday night who were directly connected with Field’s death.” “Morgan?” asked Ellery idly. The Inspector shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps. Why didn’t he tell us about it when we spoke to him yesterday afternoon? He confessed everything else. Well, maybe because he felt that a confession of having paid blackmail to the murdered man, together with the fact that he was found in the theatre, would be too damning a bit of circumstantial evidence.” “Look at it this way,” said Ellery. “Here we find a man dead who has written on his program the number ‘50,000,’ obviously referring to dollars. We know from what both Sampson and Cronin have told us about Field that he was a man of unscrupulous and probably criminal character. Further, we know from Morgan that he was also a blackmailer. I think, therefore, we can deduce safely that he went to the Roman Theatre on Monday night to collect or arrange for the payment of $50,000 in blackmail from some person unknown. Right so far?” “Go ahead,” grunted the Inspector noncommittally. “Very well,” continued Ellery. “If we conclude that the person blackmailed that night and the murderer were one and the same, we need look no farther for a motive. There’s the motive ready made—to choke off the blackmailing Field. _If_, however, we proceed on the assumption that the murderer and the person blackmailed were not the same, but two entirely different individuals, _then_ we must still scrabble about looking for a motive for the crime. My personal opinion is that this is unnecessary—that the murderer and the blackmailed person are one. What do you think?” “I’m inclined to agree with you, Ellery,” said the Inspector. “I merely mentioned the other possibility—did not state my own conviction. Let us proceed, for the time being, then, on the assumption that Field’s blackmail victim and his murderer were the same.... “Now—I want to clear up the matter of the missing tickets.” “Ah—the missing tickets,” murmured Ellery. “I was wondering what you made of that.”