Among these men whom he could not see, stood Detective Sergeant Brady and Police Captain Hendricks and between them stood a little, middle-aged Filipino, quaking with fear. The small, brown man looked up at the men who were coming out on the platform to stand squinting in the glare of the lights, and it frightened him to know that he was expected to point out one of these men as a murderer. Captain Hendricks’ words had a literal meaning for him and Captain Hendricks had said, “If you saw the guy, Ramirez, you ought to recognize him. If you don’t, I know you’re stalling because I’m not so sure you didn’t kill the broad yourself. If you’re stalling I’ll make it hot for you. We’re running every bum and rummy who comes in through the lineup. Sooner or later you’re gonna see him. When you do, tell us, do you understand?”

Not that Ramirez had entirely understood the Captain, but when he had told his friend, Santillo, what Hendricks had said, Santillo had shaken his head gravely. Santillo had been to school and understood many things that he, Ramirez, did not know about. “That is bad, Jose,” Santillo had said. “That is what I thought they would do all the time. It is a wonder to me that they did not take it for granted that you did it. After all the girl was murdered on the lot near your house and those police are always anxious to make trouble for us.”

“But how can they?” Ramirez had cried in distress. “If I had done it would I have gone to them with the story? Has anybody ever known me to go around with white girls? I am not a young man. It would be unbelievable.”

“That will not trouble them,” Santillo had said. “They will say you came to them to turn suspicion from yourself. They will say anything if they feel they cannot find the guilty one and must pin it on you to save face. You must do as he told you, Jose. You did have a glimpse of the man who strangled the girl on the lot. Of course you did not have a good look at his face but you know that he was a white man. When you see him in that lineup there may be something in his movements, in the way he carries himself, that will tell you he is the one.”

“But,” Ramirez had remonstrated, “if I do that, I might point out an innocent man.”

“You might,” Santillo had said with a sad smile. “But if he is innocent, perhaps he will be able to prove it. Certainly he will stand a better chance than you if they decide that you are guilty.”