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Ill UK
SYNOPSIS.
On 'Windward Island Palidori intrigues
Mrs Golden into an appearance of evil
which causes Golden to capture and tor
ture the Italian by branding his face and
crushing his hand. Palidori opens the
dyke gates and Hoods the island and in
the general rush to escape the flood kid
naps Golden's six-year-old daughter Mar
gory. Twelve years later in New York a
Masked One calling himself “the Hammer
of God” rescues an eighteen-year-old girl
from the cadet Casavantl. to whom Jules
Legar lias delivered her. and takes her to
the home of Enoch Golden, millionaire,
whence she is recaptured by Legar. Legar
and Stein are discovered by Manley, Gol
den's secretary, setting fire to Golden's
buildings, but escape. Margory’s mother
fruitlessly implores Enoch Golden to
And their daughter. The Masked One
again takes Margory away from Legar.
FOURTH EPISODE
THE NAME AND THE GAME
Legar had reason to feel well
pleased with his morning's work. De
feated for the time being, in one quar
ter, he promptly swung about and
struck at another.
His attack, in this instance, was di
rected at nothing less than Enoch
Golden’s own home. There, effecting
an entrance through a neglected coal
chute before even the servants were
astir, he had crept stealthily upward
until he found refuge in a trunk room.
Through the door crack of this trunk
room, however, he soon had the dubi
ous pleasure of beholding a figure quite
as stealthy as his own, a figure that
wore a laughing mask and made its
wav cautiously downward to the door
of Enoch Golden's study. On that door
the masked figure, before vanishing
as quietly as it had first appeared,
pinned an oblong paper. Stealing up
to it, Legar read:
Enoch Golden: You have proved a
disappointment to me. Despite my
warnings, you still oppress the poor
and abuse your power. Your daugh
ter has been saved from the clutches
of Legar, and at the proper time will
be produced. But that time will not
come until you have changed your
ways of life. So while still you have
the chance, do some good deed!
THE LAUGHING MASK.
Legar, having thoughtfully perused
this strange warning, promptly added
a postscript:
As a slight sign of my disapproval,
I am appropriating your fifty thousand
dollars from the vaults of the Third
National bank, for which I now take
occasion to thank you.
Ten minutes lator Legar had made
his escape from the house and was
speeding southward in his car, to con
fer with his own men as to the ap
proaching assault on Golden’s wealth
in the Third National vaults.
The Laughing Mask himself, in the
meantime, was busy with his own en-
A Figure That Wore a Laughing Mask.
terprise. He had rescued Margory
Golden from Legar, it was true, but
her conveyance to a place of safety,
in open daylight, was a much more
difficult problem. In his extremity,
accordingly, he had to resort to those
expedients nearest at hand.
This led him down a secluded by
way, where the powder shack of a con
struction company still stood half way
up a wooden hillside. At the end of
a tunnel piercing this hillside was a
timbered chamber for high explosives.
Guarded as it was with its double lock,
the Laughing Mask seemed an expert
in the manipulation of such obstacles,
since five minutes’ work with his
skeleton keys threw open that well
hidden room. Once there, he even ven
tured to explore his surroundings and
take from their case certain small cylin
ders incased in grease-stained paper.
He did not explain to the already over
puzzled girl, however, that these
grease stains were made by a sub
stance known as nitroglycerin, nor
did he explain to her, at the end of
his quiet yet hurried labors, that the
looped line hanging at the tunnel
mouth wa3 in any way connected with
the fulminate caps which he had
placed so pregnantly close to his bur
ied mine. But it was well, he remem
bered, to be prepared for such men
as Legar and his followers.
“Now,” said the masked figure, turn
ing to the girl, “I want you to stay
here until I get back.”
Waiting for her deliverer's return,
however, proved neither a pleasant
nor a tranquilizing pastime. The girl
became restless. Then sne became
worried. Theft she even ventured to
creep out along the rough-shored pas
sageway, to where the tunnel opened
on a shelf of rock and gravel half way
up the hillside. Screened as it was
with shrubbery she could see little of
the valley before her. The only point
of life that met her gaze was a black
touring car crawling along the valley
road. When that car turned off the
road and twisted and rocked in be
tween the bushes below her she
thought, at first, that it was her un
known guardian returning to her. But
when she saw five men cautiously
emerge from that half-hidden car and
creep still closer through the under
brush, she felt sure that they were
not approaching as friends. For a mo
ment her heart leaped up into her
mouth. Then she breathed again, for
she saw that they were not approach
ing her hiding place, but apparently
seeking one of their own. And as they
foregathered behind a screen of scrub
oak not more than thirty feet below
her she knew both by their guarded
tones and their general conspiratorial
aspect that they stood intent on their
own ends, quite oblivious of her and
her hiding place.
Her face paled, however, as she
heard the clearer and more authorita
tive tones of one of those speakers.
For that voice, she knew, belonged to
Legar, and only to Legar.
The girl, pushing her cautious way
through the bushes, leaned even closer
over the ledge. Then she held her
breath, for she saw that her move
ments had loosened the gravel at her
feet and sent a covey of bowlders
careening down the hillside. The
voices below at the same time came
to a sudden stop. In another moment
she could hear the crash of hurrying
feet through the tangled shrubbery.
Before she could turn and fly Le
gar and his four evil-faced followers
were charging up the slope. They
were upon her, cutting off her retreat
before she could dodge back into the
passageway. Yet she did not surren
der without a struggle. She fought
them back as best she could, standing
at bay with her back against the rocky
hillside. It was not until Legar’s hand
clamped like a vise on her arm that
she screamed, and screamed again.
A masked figure picking his cau
tious way along the crest of the hill
above them heard that cry and seemed
to understand its meaning. For, on
hearing that repeated scream, he no
longer picked his way, but ran fran
tically, and with all his speed. So pre
cipitately did he scurry down that
rocky hillside, in fact, that he de
scended in a flying leap in the very
midst of Legar's followers clustered
about the girl. He landed like a
fallen plumb bob, heels down, knock
ing one of the conspirators sprawl
ing over the cliff edge as he came. An
other he sent with a well-aimed blow
in the same direction. The third was
not disposed of so easily. But an
adept jiu-jitsu twist of the body soon
sent this opponent diving headfore
most into the loose gravel. It was
then that Legar, seeing his men going
down about him like ninepins, re
leased his clutch on the girl's arm to
draw his revolver.
At the same moment that he did
so the man in the mask, swinging the
girl sharply about, darted for the tun
nel-mouth. He was through it before
Legar could level his gun and fire. He
was half-leading, half-dragging the
panting girl down the narrow passage
before any of the band could follow.
But before he dodged for the hidden
powder house he threw up his free
hand and caught at the loop which
hung there at the end of his line. And
he pulled it vigorously as he ran.
The result of that simple movement
was both prompt and appalling. The
thunder of a great detonation shook
the earth. The rocky hillside erupt
ed into a sudden volcano of flying
earth and gravel, flinging its tons of
debris into the echoing valley. And
under the debris could be seen the
still struggling limbs of Legar and his
men.
But the man in the mask did not
linger to witness those struggles. He
darted with the white-faced girl out
of the broken tunnel mouth, dragged
; her hurriedly up the slope and circled
! down through rock and underbrush to
where his hidden car awaited him.
***** * *
The Secret Attack.
Enoch Golden was no longer a con
temptuously indifferent man as he
faced his attorney, John Sibley, hur-
Author of
“THE OCCA
SIONAL OF
FENDER,” “THE
WIRE TAP
PERS," “GUN
runners; etc.
Novelized from
THE PAT HE
PHOTO PLAY
OF THE
SAME NAME
<***•*•* l*l» *t APTMCH STWNC.I*
TTTT7 1 IWIT.Uk RMTERPRISR DOEGT,AS. GEORGIA.
rledly summoned for a conference.
“I tell you, Sibley,’’ said the man of
millions, “something has to be done,
and done soon. I’m surrounded by ene
mies I can't run down, enemies I can’t
even understand. In the first place,
there’s this man in a mask stalking
through my house and pinning threats
to my doorpanels. Then—”
“Wait,” cut in the man of law. “Did
anyone actually see this man of the
mask?”
“Yes, Wilson, my butler, came face
to face with him as he stepped out of
a passageway. Then, when my secre
tary, Manley, started in pursuit of the
intruder, instead of finding a stranger
in this fool mask, he found his way
blocked by a girl, a girl in a cloak,
who seemed to come there out of thin
air. And that girl, sir, turned out
to be my own daughter, my own
daughter in some miraculous way res
cued from Legar.”
“Brought there by the man in the
mask?”
“Yes, brought there by him. So
she asserts. Yet this stranger, who
brings me back the one thing precious
in my life, on the same day assumes
to criticize my conduct and threatens
to rob me of my money.”
“But that threat, as I’ve already
pointed out, is foolish. Your money
has all the protection that steel and
civilization can surround it with. It
lies in the vaults of the Third National
bank.”
“But I tell you I am surrounded by
enemies, by unknown enemies of great
skill and daring. That has already
been proved. And while they can
never make me cower, they have at
least made me cautious.”
“I guess we’d better all go down to
the Third National and make sure
they're not putting their gold and
notes out on the windowsills for the
first crook that comes along to carry
off.” said the lawyer.
President Stonington of the Third
National received them in his private
office and learned from Sibley the
reason of his visit. That official, in
fact, was an active sharer in the incre
dulity of the old lawyer. He quietly
touched a bell, sent for a uniformed at
tendant and instructed that attendant
“It's the Laughing Mask Again!” Said Legar With an Oath.
to escort his visitor to the bank
vaults. ,
“Be so good, Mr. Wells, as to show
our clients that our vaults are not
made of tissue paper.”
This the attendant took much pride
in doing.
The array of defensive measures,
puzzling as it was to the younger mem
bers of the party, served to bring a
sense of assurance to Enoch Golden
himself.
A certain one-armed criminal, nev
ertheless, was at that precise moment
very busily engaged in preparing for
his assault on this Gibraltar of gold
so proudly regarded as impregnable.
Two workmen in the uniform of Gen
eral Electric employees, exploring a
section of abandoned cable gallery,
were busily engaged in enlarging a
wire conduit which met this gallery at
right angles. There, by means of an
electric mining drill, they burrowed
like two moles deep beneath the level
of the street along which the traffic
of a great city so ceaselessly ebbed and
flowed. From a manhole opening into
this gallery was quietly passed a huge
cylinder of iron capped by a drum of
zinc having a hinged cover. The two
subterranean workers had been
warned to handle the cylinder with the
utmost care. And this they did, know
ing full well that its weight was due
to the fact of its being tightly packed
with high explosive.
Legar himself, in the meantime, hav
ing clothed a number of his henchmen
in uniforms and caps hearing the in
scription “Western National Bank,” di
rected his attention to the much more
critical task of tracing the signature,
Henry H. Stonington, on a typewritten
sheet bearing the embossed imprint
of the Third National.
His next move, once he had received
a report that his two gallery workers
had fitted their massive cylinder in the
wire conduit and pushed it gently but
firmly into the uttermost recesses of
that conduit by means of a jointed
bamboo pole, was to verify the time
at which tho detonating clock had
been set, advise his colleagues, and
take up his position in the window of
a building commanding a view of the
great granite-bastioned bank itself.
He consulted his watch from time
to time, with his eyes always going
hungrily back to the heavy-pillared
back entrance itself.
“In one minute,” he announced,
“they’ll get a dose of the medicine they
gave us this morning.” Again he
looked at his watch.
A sudden thud and roar of sound
cut off all smaller sounds. Then came
the cries of terror-stricken human be
ings, shrill calls for help, hoarse
shouts from stalwart figures in uni
forms, and the sudden shrill of a po
liceman's whistle. The clamor and
tumult of the streets rose above the
quick and ever-nearing throb of en
gine bells, the gongs of ambulances,
the rattle of iron-tired patrol wagons
pounding over car rails, the shouts of
blue-coated patrolmen already forming
their cordon around the dust-crowned
ruins.
“Fire!” was the cry that filled the
canyon! “The building’s on fire!”
And it was then that Legar re
placed his watch in his pocket, and
tossing aside the field glasses through
which he had been viewing the street,
showed that he was once more him
self.
“Now’s the time, men,” he an
nounced to his followers, “to get ready
for work!”
• ••••••
The Biter Bitten.
The news of the Third National
bank outrage soon spread through the
city. And as the resultant fire grew
in intensity the crowd in the neighbor
hood grew in volume. Police reserves,
marshaled by a stalwart and stern
faced captain, had already estab
lished their fire lines and still fought
back the overcurious that trampled
the long scorpions of black hose and
kept edging and shouldering ever
closer to the scene of the great catas
trophe.
There was no relaxing of vigilance,
in fact, when the limousine of Enoch
Golden himself came throbbing and
crawling through that densely packed
mob of human beings, Golden himself,
alighting from that car, pleaded and
stormed in vain with the inexorable
officials confronting him. And while
he still frenziedly argued and demand
ed a hearing with the officers in
charge, a second vehicle made its way
towards the still smoldering ruins.
This second vehicle was a motor
truck on which was mounted not only
a number of men in the uniform of
bank attendants, but also a police lieu-
tenant, who had been requisitioned to
clear a way through the crowd. For
this was not the intrusion of mere cu
riosity seekers. That much the cap
tain in charge of the police lines
promptly discovered when he was on
the point of ordering both truck and
attendants out of the forbidden terri
tory. For the cool-eyed man in com
mand of that truck had come well
armed for any such emergency. Into
the astonished hand of the police offi
cial he thrust an authoritative-looking
document from the president of the
Third National himself:
This letter of introduction read:
To the Officials in Charge: Act
ing on an emergency decision of our
directois, I herewith authorize the
agents of the Western National Bank
to take possession of and remove the
contents of Third National Bank vaults
to the vaults of the Western National.
As this decision was arrived at to
frustrate any possible interference
with our gold and collateral when so
obviously exposed, I trust you will do
everything possible to expedite the re
moval of this treasure to a place of
safety.
Yours very truly,
JOHN ELIOT STONINGTON,
, President.
At the same time that the police
captain, acting on this peremptory or
der, was clearing a path to the neigh
borhood of the still smoking vaults,
Enoch Golden, with Margory and Man
ley at his side, was fighting to break
through those jealously guarded fire
lines. And at the sight of the motor
truck and the Western National at
tendants his antics became even more
frenzied than before.
“I tell you I’ve got to get in there!”
he shouted to the apathetic patrolman
holding him back.
“Yes,” agreed the patrolman, “of
course you'd like to get in there.”
“But I tell you I’m Enoch Golden,”
was the financier's frantic cry.
“I don't care if you're the president
o’ the United States,” was the retort.
“You stay out.”
It was young Manley himself, who,
watching his chance, suddenly slipped
in through the lines aud gained the
side of the busy captain before he
could be stopped. For already the
work of removing the vault contents
was under way.”
“You've got to keep this gold from
going out,” the young man cried into
the face of the somewhat astounded
captain.
“Who are you?” demanded that offi
cial. “And what pipe school did you
pick that idea from?”
“I picked it from a warning that
came to Enoch Golden this morning. I
tell you you’re handing forty millions
to a bunch of crooks on a forged
order! ”
The captain called to a couple of
his men.
“Tierney, and you, Doolan, take this
bug-shooter in charge.”
“Then telephone to Stonington him
self,” cried the frantic Manley strug
gling in the grip of his captors. Get
him on the wire himself, and see what
he says!”
“Patterson,” he called out. "Take
charge here, and don’t let this motor
truck move an inch until I verify this
order of Stonington’s.” Then he
turned to Manley. “You come with I
me.”
The triumphant light soon went out
of young Manley’s face, however, as ;
he stood beside the captain in the i
telephone booth. He could hear that j
official call for the number, ask for
Stonington, and crisply demand of the
banker if the order for the vault trans
fer was authentic of not.
“Of course it's authentic! And I
want to know what this game is!
What are you and your bunch out
there trying to put over?”
But Manley knew what he knew.
* “I tell you that wasn’t Stonington
that spoke. It couldn’t have been!”
cried the desperate young secretary.
The captain was already on his feet
and fighting his way back to the fire
lines.
“Then suppose you go up and tell
him he’s been dreaming,” mocked the
irate official. “Then get his affidavit
to that effect and amble back with it.”
Manley himself wa*b already darting
for the door.
“That’s just what I’ll do,” he called
out as he made for the corner of
Broadway on the run, and there, still
on the run, leaped to the running
board of an empty taxicab north
bound.
Manley’s wait on Stonington’s door
step was doubly disquieting. Still
more disquieting, however, was that
obese banker's reply to the questions
so fiercely hurled at him.
“I gave out no such order. And no
such telephone call ever came to my
house tonight!”
“Then get your phone, quick!” Man
ley warned him. “Get police head
quarters and stop that raid. Stop it in
side of ten minutes or your bank’ll
look like a last year’s bird nest!”
The excited man of finance, who
had been shouting to nis servants, sud
denly ran to the nearest desk phone
and struggled with the Instrument. But
his struggles were fruitless.”
“My phone's dead,” he cried out to
Manley. “I can't raise central! I
can’t raise anything!”
“Then beat it for that bank of
yours,” advised Manley as he made for
the door.
“Take me with you; for God's sake
take me with you,” cried Stonington,
catching up his hat aud coat and fol
lowing him.
“I can’t,” retorted the young man
as he darted for his waiting taxi. "I’ve
got to look for a crook called Oyster
Joe!”
The police lines about the ruins of
the Third National bank, as Manley
went scurrying through the streets lit
tle dreaming that a stranger had pre
ceded him on that errand, had al
ready been strengthened by addition
al reserves as the great motor truck
with its bank guards was piled higher
and higher with the gold from the
blistering vaults. Then came the call
for “Gangway!” And it became more
and mere evident that no timely in
terception was to rob Legar and his
men of their spoils. The heavy truck
was already crawling out from the
curb, its great wheels crunching over
cinders and charred wood, as a mes
senger ran up to the officer in charge,
calling him to the telephone.
That official held the receiver in his
hand as the motor truck, gathering
speed as it threaded its way through
a narrow aisle of open asphalt formed
by surging humanity, rounded the cor
ner into Broadway, thundered north
ward for three blocks, and again
turned eastward.
By the time John Stonington's lan
daulet reached the bank, following the
warning already sent on from head
quarters, an empty vault lay amid the
smoking ruins and Legar’s galleon on
wheels, loaded to the brink with its
stolen gold, had slipped away unchal
lenged through the darkness and all
trace of it had been lost.
The objective of that wheeled gal
leon. however, seemed to have been
nicely appreciated by Oyster Joe, quiet
ly smoking on the deck of an extremely
powerful-engined but extremely dirty
launch moored in the shadow of a
wharf. That worthy, indeed, showed
a marked preference for gloom, since
neither his cabin nor his deck lamps
were alight. Equally without light
was the lumbering truck which
crawled cautiously down to the lip of
the wharf, where, after an exchange
of quiet whistled signals, a number of
vaguely outlined figures set about lift
ing a pile of small hut sturdy canvas
sacks and boxes from the motor truck
to the waiting launch. This was done
in utter silence. The moment the
transfer had been completed the
launch slipped out from the wharf
shadow.
Morose as seemed the man steering
that launch, the two newcomers who
had been ordered aboard his craft,
after it had been so silently and quick
ly loaded, occupied much of his at
tention. It was soon plain, however,
that he had small wish for. conversa
tion with them. When, after three
miles of silent travel, during which the
white-bearded man at the wheel had
responded with nothing more than a
sulky fimftt, one of the iomers sud
denly struck a match and held it close
to the white-bearded face, the hands
gripping the wheel quite as suddenly
relinquished their hold and fastened
themselves about the throat of the
overinquisitive cargo sentry. Before-,
his companion, standing quite elose to
the bow of the boat, could quite real
ize the meaning of the movement, the
two men beside the wheel were writh
ing and stamping and panting about
the narrow deck.
Fierce as that fight was, it was not
a prolonged one. For the white-beard
ed man, despite his age, with one final
effort, succeeded in lifting his op-
Legar Took Up His Position at a*
Window.
ponent clear of the deck-boards an<fc
flinging him headforemost into the:
black water. Then he turned and:
braced himself for the charge of the
second man. This second man he met
by dropping quite flat and unexpected
ly on the deck itself. He felt the
charging body go over his own, caught
at one still kicking foot as he twisted:
quickly about, and before his opponent,
could recover from that fall the patri
archal boat owner had assisted his un
welcome guest over the deck-lip after
his companion.
But, oddly enough, in that struggle*
the bewhiskered old boatman had un
dergone a sudden and startling change..
The clutching fingers of his enemy ins
the second contest along the boatdeck:
had buried themselves in the thick
white beard decorating that launch
owner’s chin. And when this enemy
went overboard that fringe of whis
kers went with him. leaving at the
wheel a somewhat altered and consid
erably younger looking man. And that
this unknown amender of destinies
was still intent on nursing the secret
of his identity was further evidenced
by the fact that, before turning his*,
boat about and facing the ebb-tide cur
rent of the North river, he carefully
adjusted over his nose a narrow band,
of yellow cloth, with its little apron,
of an inverted crescent. Still later,,
as he closely watched the light-span
gled shore line, he caught sight of
two small winging eyes of green and
red. Accepting this apparently as a
signal, he swung in close under the*
shadow of a coal barge and made fast,
at the slip end, where high above him
a waiting taxicab stood close beside*
the stringpiece. Yet, hurried as the**
man in the mask seemed to be, he took,
time to sit under one of the cabin
lamps and indite a short epistle. This
epistle, addressed to “Enoch Golden*
and his friends,” read as follows:
The Funds of the Third National
bank, vault are now in my possession
and will be duly returned to the right
ful owners. But that I may enjoy the*
luxury of the game as well as the
name, I am withholding from those re
turned funds the fifty thousand dollars
in gold which was formerly the prop
erty of the man who, by oppressing,
the poor, has compelled this action.
When that man looks into his own*
heart and returns to the paths of wis
dom, this gold will be returned to hirm
by
THE LAUGHING MASK.
Still later that night while Davie-,
Manley and Margory Golden and her
father were arguing and wondering as
to the origin and full meaning of this-,
strange message, Legar and his men,,
emerging like water rats from the*
river-front rendezvous close beside the-;
Owl s Nest, piled into a harbor launch,:
with a muffled kicker and silently
made their way for Oyster Joe’s.
Crowding into the dimly lit sail loft
of Oyster Joe, they found themselves*
confronted, not by the millions m.
stolen treasure, but by a stiff-jointed
and blasphemous old man in white*
whiskers, tied and lashed to one of
his own shack beams.
“Don’t yelp at me about your’
damned gold.” cried Oyster Joe, with,
a sulphurous string of oaths, when
he was able to speak. “I never saw'
any gold! Ail I saw was that chain
lightning girnc m a mask, the gink
who’s double-crossed me twice at the
same game!”
Legar staggered back into a broken;
chair.
“So it’s the Laughing Mask again:’*
he said with an oath.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)