Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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.)