As the second act opens, Saunders and Max return to the hotel suite. Max's performance as Othello was a huge success, and no one suspected that he was not Tito. Then Saunders gets a phone call, telling him that the police are downstairs in the lobby. They are looking for "a lunatic dressed as Othello, who thinks he's Tito Merelli." During Max's performance, the "lunatic" tried to force his way into the opera house, hit a policeman who tried to stop him, and ran away.