A Face in the Fog

When two cast members of playwright Peter Fortune's musical mystery are murdered by a hunchback called the "Fiend," reporter Jean Monroe of the Journal prints an article in which she claims to have seen the murderer, and is herself pursued by the killer. Fellow reporter Frank Gordon, who is also Jean's fiancé, saves her from being killed while she is in a taxi, and the driver is killed instead. All of the Fiend's victims were reportedly shot, but the coroner has found no bullet wounds and has deemed the cause of the deaths as poison. When Jean is invited to the Alden Theatre, where Fortune's play is being produced, to interview adagio dancer Ted Wallington, there is a sudden blackout on stage and Wallington is shot. Before he dies, he says he had recognized the killer, but expires before he can name him. Fortune arrives and expounds the theory that the killer uses a frozen concentrated poison that is shot from a specially constructed revolver. When the poison is shot into the body, it melts, erasing any sign of a "bullet." Fortune suggests that Sanchi, a hunchback well versed in methods of murder, is involved in the killings. At the suggestion of Reardon, an actor in the play, Jean and Frank take adjacent rooms at the Globe Hotel, where the rest of the cast is staying. When someone calls Frank at the hotel impersonating his editor, Harrison, Reardon offers to call the police, but Frank catches him making a fake call and has him arrested. The next day, police captain Davis calls all involved to the theater to reenact Wallington's murder. During the staged blackout, Reardon panics and confesses that the Fiend had threatened his life and had forced him to help him. Reardon is about to identify the Fiend when another blackout occurs and he is shot. Bruce Cromwell, who runs a nearby theater, happens to be backstage at the time of Reardon's murder and is arrested. Frank, determined to catch the killer, becomes suspicious of Fortune when he finds his cigarette case backstage, and researches his past for a possible motive. Frank learns that Fortune's first play had been produced ten years before by Cooke and Wilson, the producers of his current play. On opening night, a fire broke out in the theater, killing forty people, including Fortune's brother. While Frank is presenting his hunch to Harrison, bumbling Journal photographer Elmer eavesdrops at Sanchi's hideout, where he sees Fortune and the murder weapon. Fortune then visits Frank in search of his cigarette case, and Frank follows him to Sanchi's hideout. There, Fortune confesses that he is both Sanchi and the Fiend and reveals that his cigarette case contains the frozen poison. As Fortune is about to shoot Frank, the police arrive with Elmer and kill Fortune. Later Harrison gives Frank a $2,000 bonus, but Frank gives it to Elmer, who in turn gives it to Frank and Jean as a wedding present.