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AUTHOR OF “THE OCCASIONAL OFFENDER,”
“THE WIRE TAPPERS,” “GUN RUNNERS” ETC.
NOVELIZED FROM THE PATHE PHOTO PLAY OF THE SAME NAME
COPYHICHT. 1915. ARTHUR.STRINCtR,
SYNOPSIS.
On Windward Island Paiidort 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 floods the is
land and kidnaps Golden's little daughter
Margery. Twelve years later in New York
a Masked One rescues Margery from L“-
gar and takes her to her father’s home,
whence she is recaptured. Margery’s
mother fruitlessly implores Golden to find
their daughter. The Laughing Mask
again takes Margery away from Iygar
Legar send 3 to Golden a warning and a
demand for a portion of the chart of
Windward Island. Margery meets her
mother. The chart is lost in a fight be
tween Manley and one of Legar’s hench
men, but is recovered by the Laughing
Mask. Count Da Espares figures In a
dubious attempt to entrap Legar and
claims to have killed him. Golden’s house
Is dynamited during a masked bail. Le
gar escapes but Da Espares is crushed In
the ruins Margery rescues the Laughing
Mask from the police. Manley finds Mar
gery not indifferent to his love. He saves
her from Mauki’s poisoned arrows. Man
ley plans a mock funeral which fails to
accomplish the desired purpose, the cap
ture of the Iron Claw and his gang. The
liaughlng Mask again frustrates the Iron
Claw.
ELEVENTH EPISODE
The Saving of Dan O’Mara
Young Peggy O’Mara was troubled
In mind. She had become suspicious
of her own father. On more than one
occasion of late that debt-harried
toiler from the Applewaithe works
had been visited by a stranger who im
pressed the sophisticated young Peggy
as anything but attractive And an
honest man, Peggy argued with her
self, finds no need for stealing up to
a house at night and closeting himself
with its owner behind the locked door
of a cellar workroom. So the spindle
legged daughter of Dan O’Mara, watch
ing for her chance, decided to investi
gate.
Put the girl’s chances for Investi
gation were limited, for Peggy was a
hard-driven young housekeeper, with a
bedridden mother to look after as best
she could. Late one night, however,
when Dan O’Mara had led his myste
rious visitor into his cellar workroom
and locked the door behind him, the
girl slipped off her broken-toed shoes
and stole silently down to that under
ground chamber of mystery.
There, with her ear to the keyhole,
she overheard enough to confirm her
darkest suspicions. She waited until
the mysterious visitor had stolen out
through the house, with a parcel under
his arm, and then once more made her
way down to her father’s workrooqi.
The door, this time, was unlocked. So
she entered noiselessly and crept over
to where Dan O’Mara sat staring at
the wall with unseeing eyes.
"Pop, what’re you thinkin’ about?”
suddenly asked a tremulous voice
close to liis shoulder.
He swung about like a shot.
“What should I be thinkin’ about?”
he demanded.
“You're thinkin’ about that man who
was down here ten minutes ago,” was
the girl’s answer.
"What man?” equivocated the cul
prit.
"Chinatown Charlie.”
“And how’d you know he's called
Chinatown Charlie?” demanded rebel
lious-eyed Dan O'Mara.
“I know more’n that, pop,” said the
girl, with a gulp. “I know that city
crook’s ropin’ you in for work I never
thought you’d do!”
“Work? What work?”
“There’s a bunch of opium smug
glers got wise to the fact that the dye
works is bringin’ in tons of that Kai
sow wood from China. And certain o’
them blocks is goin’ to come in hol
low with secret marks, and you’re
goin’ to dig the opium out o’ them and
hide it here until that hop runner for
Chinatown Charlie comes and carries
it away in a laundry bag!”
“Ain't your mother got to have med
icine?” demanded her father. “Ain't
we behind in our rent? And ain’t the
company docked me ten a month since
that one-armed man had me machine
work taken away from me?”
“But you’ll more’n your ma- !
chine taken away from you, pop.
You'll be queered with the company,
for tamperin’ with stock, and then the
bulls ’ll get wise and send you up the
river for smugglin’!”
“I’ve thought that out, me gerll. I’ve
no love for goin’ against the law, at
me time o’ life, out I guess we've got
to take chances. We've got to, or go
under for good and all! For I'm think
in’ your poor mother was right when
she said there was no crime so black
as the crime o’ bein’ poor!”
“But they’d promised to raise your
pay, over to the dye works!” she re
minded him.
“Instead o' which they took off me
machine and gave it to that one-armed
snitch who claimed I’d been workin
against the company by tryin’ to in
vent a chemical color that'd soon be
sandin' their old logwood plant t' the
scrap heap!”
Silent as Peggy O’Mara remained
on the subject of her discovery, she
brooded long and darkly on this heav
ier cloud that hung over her home and
her father’s good name. It haunted
her thoughts as she worked. It filled
her blind young heart with a spirit of
revolt. It converted her into a di
minutive yet lowering-browea Ishmael-
IrMllffi
; ite. She hated the owner of the works,
she told herself as she carried her fa
ther’s dinner pail to the factory the
next day, and she hated the hard
voiced foreman of the shaft room. She
turned to stare belligerently towards
Anson Applewaithe, the immaculate
son of the factory owner himself, as
he ushered into the room of whirring
shafts and flying belts a small group
of visitors.
Yet the Ishmael-like young face soft
j ened a little as she looked at one mem
| her of that approaching group. For
one fair-haired girl of about twenty,
! dressed in black, whom young Apple
waithe piloted about amid the roaring
and clattering machinery and repeat
edly addressed as “Miss Golden,” was
l beautiful enough to bring a wayward
pang of envy to the breast of Peggy
O’Mara. As she watched her eyes sud
denly widened in alarm. For Margery
Golden, in staring about the room, had
unconsciously moved closer*to one of
the ponderous machines. There the
loose end of her motor-cape was
snapped at by a spinning cog wheel, as
a hound snaps at a bone. The next
moment the whirling teeth had fas
tened themselves in the fabric of the
garment edge, carrying it back be
tween the jaws of the twin cogs that
quickly closed on the cloth and
seemed to reach out for more.
At the same moment that Margery
Golden turned about to determine the
meaning of this sudden tug at her
clothing, the alert-eyed Peggy O’Mara
made an apparently maniacal spring
for that astounded young woman’s
throat.
With a quick jerk of her thin young
fingers Peggy tore the cape free where
it was already straining against the
white column of Its wearer’s throat.
It was not until Margery Golden
saw the iron teeth of the cog wheels
swallowing up the last of her vanish
ing cape that any inkling of her dan
ger came home to her.
Margery Golden stepped back and
leaned against a guard rail. Then, aft
er looking studiously at the slattern
and slightly abashed figure of her de
liverer, she opened her pocketbook
and from it took out two or three neat
ly folded bank notes. These she held
smilingly out to the girl with the
broken-toed shoes.
But a quick flash spread over the
usually colorless cheeks of Miss Peggy
O’Mara as she backed determinedly
away from the bills.
‘‘Don’t you care to take them?”
asked the somewhat astonished young
woman in black.
“No ma’am!” was the girl’s almost
sullen retort. “I ain’t earned ’em!”
“But I rather think you have,” per
sisted the other, still smiling.
“You see, you saved my life. And
surely you won’t embarrass me by
arguing that it’s not worth that
much!”
“I don’t want your money,” an
nounced the sullen-eyed girl, putting
her hands behind her. But already
young Applewaithe was discreetly do
ing his best to pilot his visitors away
from the scene.
Peggy O’Mara stared after the de
parting group. So intently did she
stare after them that she was oblivi
ous of the movements of the one-armed
man who had been stooping low over
his machine, in a pretense of filling its
oil cups. He crept out to where a
small gold locket had dropped from
Margery Golden’s neck during the en
counter. He caught it up from the oil
stained floor, looked at it for one short
moment, and then slipped it triumph
antly into his pocket. After that he
stood behind his machine, well out of
sight, watching the fair-haired girl in
black as she stepped out through the
factory door. His eyes, as he watched
her, were both calculating and sinis
ter. But the pallid-faced girl standing
so close beside him had no means of
knowing that this preoccupied and
stoop-shouldered workman who had
lost his right hand was Jules Legar,
long known to his enemies as the
Iron Claw.
That mysterious one-armed man,
however, was destined to become bet
ter acquainted with Peggy O’Mara
than she imagined. For that night,
when the uneasy-minded girl knew her
father to be once more shut up in his
cellar workroom, she was further
disturbed by the sound of stealthy
steps across the bare wooden floor of
her home. She tiptoed out through
the door, crossed to the cellar steps,
and crept silently down into the dark
ness.
There, vaguely outlined against the
door cracks in the wall shielding her
father, she could make out a stealthily
inquisitive figure. And she knew that
figure could mean no good to the house
of O'Mara.
She crept as silently up the broken
steps again, went to her father’s time
; worn tool chest and from it took out a
somewhat rusty but ominous-looking
revolver.
The thin-armed girl with the thick
bodied revolver then crept back to
wards the cellar She had reached the
top of the stairs when she saw a dark
figure slowly emerge from the gloom.
Then a gasp of surprise broke from
j her lips, for she saw it was the one-
THE DOUGLAS ENTERPRISE, DOUGLAS, GEORGIA.
armed workman from the Applewaithe
factory. And the next moment she re
membered that this was the same man
who had tried to rob her father of his
work. And she no longer hesitated.
“Get out o’ this house!” she com
manded. “And get out quick, or I'll
put a hole clean through you!”
For a moment Legar stared round
eyCd at the apparition confronting
him.
“Now, my girl, I mean no harm for
you here,” he tried to argue, as he felt
for the door behind him.
“You mean ifitrm for me father —
and that’s enough for me! Get out o’
here, and go while the goin’s good!”
“Listen to me,” persisted Legar as
he backed through the door, “you’re
doing your father more harm, at this
very moment, than I could ever do
him.”
"I’ll take me chance on that,” was
her retort.
“But you’re losing your chance,
you’re—”
Legar did not complete that sen
tence. Instead, he leaped suddenly to
wards the girl with the firearm, for
he had noticed her dress sleeve catch
in the screen-door hook. This had re
sulted in the momentary deflection of
that ever-menacing revolver barrel,
and Legar’s long fingers had encom
passed that weapon before she could
level it again. With a quick turn or
two he had twisted it out of her hand.
Then he caught her by the shoulder
and swung her fiercely about.
"Now, my girl, I’m going to tell you
a thing or two,” said the man with the
revolver, stooping closer to her in the
moonlight. “You think I’m an enemy
of your father’s. But you’re wrong.
All lamis a treasury agent. And I’ve
been wondering if you know how many
years it means for a man who gets
caught in a twenty thousand-dollar
dope-smuggling coup?”
Legar turned and nodded pregnantly
toward the cellar where he knew
O’Mara to he.
“You’ve nothin’ on me father!” pro
tested the now terrified girl.
“Nothing beyond the fact, of course,
that he’s carrying Kaisow wood away
from the Applewaithe factory. And
why he’s doing that you know as well
as I do!”
A sob suddenly shook the meager
body of the white-faced girl.
“For Gawd’s sake, mister, gather me
in if you want to! Take me, but don’t
send me father up! He’s a good man,
at heart, and wouldn’t so much as
harm a fly.! You can kill me if you
want to, but don’t be hard on me fa
ther!”
Legal - stood thoughtfully regarding
her.
“I don’t want to kill you, my girl, I
want to help you. And if you’re willing
to take a turn at helping me, in a
move or two, I believe I could still
make this thing come out all right.”
“You’ll let me father off?” she de
manded.
“Yes.”
"Then tell me what I’m to do.”
“You remember that young lady at
the' works this morning, who nearly
got drawn into the machinery?”
“The skirt with the starry eyes?
Sure!”
“Well, I want to meet that young
lady, in secret.”
“And where do I come in?”
“I want you to go to her house and
ask her to come to the sluiceroom of
the factory tomorrow night.”
“I can see that millionaire dame
losin’ her beauty sleep to beat it out
to a dye dump like this!”
“Then it’s up to you to take her
there,” was Legar’s retort.
“But I ain’t no miracle worker!”
Legar drew back.
“Then our bargain is to fall
through?” he demanded, with a head
movement towards the cellar door.
"But how’m I goin’ to make her
come?” inquired the distressed girl.
Legar drew out the gold locket which
he had picked up from the factory
floor.
“This dropped from her throat when
you tore her cape free this morning.
Take that to her. Tell her you’d found
it after she left. She’ll feel sorry for
you. In fact, you’ve got to make her
feel sorry for you. You’d better try a
faint, when you’re talking to her, and
tell her you haven’t eaten for a couple
of days. She’ll try to give you money.
But you must tell her that your moth
er is worse off than you are.”
“But s’posin’ she won’t swallow that
sob stuff?”
"It’s up to you to make her. And
the best way to get her out here is to
persuade her to fill a basket of food
and wine and bring it back with her
in her own car. She knows you belong
to the factory settlement here, and
she won’t be suspicious. You do your
work right, and you'll have her here
tomorrow night.”
The youthful eyes which life had al
ready left hard studied the sinister
figure in the moonlight.
"And when I get her out to that
sluiceroom, what’re you goin’ to do
with her?”
The one-armed man laughed quietly.
“That’s something strictly between
her and me,” was his calmly enunci
ated reply as he stepped slowly back
and disappeared through the shrub
bery beside the O’Mara cottage.
The girl stood staring after him
without moving. So intently did she
look after that vanishing figure that
she did not observe a second figure,
even more mysterious than the first,
as it slipped out of the shadows and
stepped quietly up beside her.
She turned with a start and stared
up at the stranger confronting her.
And it did not add to her peace of
mind to discover that this stranger
wore a mask over his face.
“What d’ you want here?” was her
brusque demand.
“I’m looking for a young girl who
happens to be in trouble,” was the
quietly spoken reply.
“Then I guess you’ll have to keep
on travelin’,” announced Peggy as she
swung up the broken steps with as
sumed nonchalance, strode in through
the door, and shut it after her. She
stood there for several minutes before
venturing to move. Then she silently
reopened the door and stared out, to
make sure that her visitor had taken
his departure. Instead of catching
sight of the masked figure, however,
she was a little startled to see the
one-armed man push his way in
through the bushes and once more
creep to the door where she stood.
“What did that man want?” quick
ly demanded the newcomer.
"I didn’t wait to ask him,” was the
girl’s retort.
“No, I guess this isn’t a time for
waiting,” ruminated the other aloud.
"And for that reason we’ll have to
speed up that bargain of ours, and put
the thing through tonight!”
"Tonight?” echoed the girl in a whis
per of alarm.
“Do you want to save your father?”
“I’ll bring ’er,” she announced with
grim determination. “I’ll bring her,
even though I have to throw a string
o’ fits to start her on the way!”
The Drums of Death.
It was not until Margery Golden
was seated in the suede-upholstered
landaulet that she found time to ques-
The Girl Seemed Honest.
tion the expediency of her midnight
mission. Yet as she looked at the un
happy and hollow-eyed girl at her side
she felt sure that her journey, odd as
it had at first seemed to her, could not
be altogether a mistake. The girl was
honest, of that there could be no ques
tion, for she had journeyed many long
miles to restore a trivial bit of jewelry
to its owner. She had also refused to
accept money. She had even seemed
unwilling, after Margery had packed a
large motor hamper with jelly and
milk and potted meats, to have that
luxurious young lady venture so far
a-field at such an hour of the night.
But Margery felt that it was a case
where the loss of time might possibly
mean the loss of a life, and she was
glad, as they went humming out past
the thinning lights of the city’s re
motest suburbs, that she had not hesi
tated to do what she could to repay
her debt to the daughter of Dan
O’Mara.
"Why are we stopping at the Apple
waithe works?” she asked as the car
drew up beside the unlighted roadside.
"Because me mother’s here for the
night,” explained the wistful-eyed girl
as she clambered down from the car,
grateful for the gloom that already
surrounded her. "You see, ma’am, they
put us out o’ the house this mornin’!
So pop got the watchman here to let
me mother sleep in one o’ the base
ment rooms.”
"Will your father be here?" inquired
the somewhat bewildered young wom
an at her heels.
“I can get ’im, ma’am,” explained
the girl as she put down the hamper,
"if you’ll just step in through that
door.”
"But who’ll take me to where your
iiH
With a Bed-Ridden Mother to Look After.
mother is?" asked Margery, gathering
up her skirts as she glanced into the
dingy storeroom feebly lighted by its
one dingy electric bulb.
“I’ll be back in a minute, ma’am,” the
girl replied, only too glad of any rea
sonable excuse for disappearing.
Margery, in the meantime, peered
doubtfully about the somber building
in which she found herself so unex
pectedly a visitor. Along one side of
the room in which she stood she could
make out dark masses of dye wood
piled as high as her head. Beside this
she saw, in the uncertain light, an
open pit filled with water. Into one
side of this pit ran a cement-walled
sluiceway, stained almost black, with
a Watergate set in the upper part ot
its channel. The opening in the far
side of the pit, which was guarded by
a heavy iron grill as big as a park
gate, led into a high-walled cavern
across which stretched a number of
huge steel drums. Set in these drums
were rows of knife-edged cleavers.
The polished surfaces of these great
blades of steel shone ominously in the
half-light.
Margery was still staring at the
great drums bristling with cleavers
when with a suddenness that startled
her the electric lights were thrown on
across the roof of the chamber. She
wheeled about quickly to discover the
cause for this. As she did so, an invol
untary gasp escaped from her lips. For
standing beside the door, with his fin
ger still on the switch, the Iron Claw
himself confronted her.
“Why are you afraid of me?” he con
fidently purred. For the girl drew
slowly away while he as slowly fol
lowed after her, step by step. Then,
with a movement that was feline in its
quickness, he flung out an arm and
seized her. Then he turned her delib
erately about until she faced the black
walled sluiceway. But the girl shrank
back.
“Don’t be afraid of it, my dear,” he
mocked as he led her forcibly, step by
step, to the lip of the channel through
which the mill water was curling and
eddying. “In fact, I want you to look
at it closely and understand it fully.
It’s wonderful, wonderful for many
reasons. At the end of this sluice, you
see, is a log mangle. I have seen those
knives shred a six-inch timber in less
than a minute’s time.”
He turned and stared down at the
white-faced girl, drinking to the full
the dizzy wine of her terror, wringing
a voluptuous delight out of her word
less gape of horror. Then the look on
his face suddenly altered, and he
wheeled about, still clutching the girl
close to his side. He stood staring at
the door which he had locked but a
minute before. And hi 3 face sudden
ly hardened as he saw the heavy iron
latch of that door move.
Margery, following his glance, also
watched that door. And when she
heard the thump of a heavy timber on
its panels a new hope sped through
her. That hope equipped her with
fresh strength. It prompted her to
struggle against the Iron Claw with
the utmost power of her desperate
young body. But her enemy, for all
her efforts, was too much for her. Foot
by foot' he forced her back towards
the open sluiceway. Then, with a mut
tered gasp of finality and a sudden up
ward heave of his shoulders, he flung
the girl headlong into the water.
As he did so the door burst open.
For the heavy-hearted Peggy O’Mara,
after slipping guiltily away from the
sluiceroom where she had left her
quite unsuspecting victim, awakened
for the first time to the full enormity
of her offense. As she stood there in
the darkness, staring back at the dark
mass of the factory walls, the aches of
remorse lay heavy on her young heart.
She was standing there, with tears
of helplessness in her eyes, when a
figure stepped up to her. She would
have fled, incontinently, at the ap
proach of that intruder. But the
stranger held her with a gently re
straining hand. And as she peered up
at his face she saw that it was the
man in the laughing mask.
“The righting of wrongs is a part of
my business in life. Can I help you?”
The girl hesitated.
“Yes.” she finally confessed, with a
burst of tears. And through her sobs
she brokenly recounted as much
she dared of that night’s proceedings.
But she continued to weep.
“And me father’ll be goin’ to the
pen for what I’m tellin’ you,” she
wailed out in her misery.
“He will not,” avowed the Laughing
Mask, with decision. “He’ll have
more than help before this night is
over, and a better job and a clear con
science before another one comes!
But tell me first where you left this
girl you brought out’ from the city?’’
“Inside the door o’ the sluiceroom
there.”
“Good God!” gasped the man in the
mask. Then he caught the spindle
legged Peggy O’Mara by the hand and
started for the shadowy pile of the fac
tory on the run. “Quick!” he said as
he ran, “show me the door!"
The half-breathless girl pointed it
out to him. But as he ran up to it he
found it locked. He stooped and fran
tically caught up a piece of timber al
most as long and heavy as his own
body. Peggy O’Mara, seeing that its
weight seemed more than he could
manage, promptly ran to his assist
ance.
“Now, come together,” he said, “for
we’ve got to knock that door in!”
Twice, three times, they charged the
door before it gave way. But the mo
ment its panels crashed in the Laugh
ing Mask leaped through the opening.
As he did so he caught sight of the
two struggling figures on the brink
of the blackened runway. As he saw
the figure of the woman flung headlong
into the open sluiceway he leaped with
a shout towards the one-armed man
who stood on its brink. But that one
armed man, with a lightninglike move
ment, whipped a revolver from his
pocket, swung round on the intruder,
and fired.
The Laughing Mask wheeled half
way about, staggered a step or two,
and then fell forward on his face.
The wide-eyed Peggy O’Mara, fol
lowing at his heels, saw both that fall
and the fact that the Iron Claw had al
ready leaped towards the control
board of the water mangle. Peggy
screamed aloud, shrilly and belligerent
ly, as she leaped for the man already
before the control board. She caught
at him, clawing at his upraised arm,
fought him with every jot of her thin
blooded girlish body.
But she was no match for that de
termined and malignant opponent. The
most she could do was to distract and
harry him for a precious moment or
two. Then, realizing she was a factor
to be eliminated without scruple, he
caught her bodily up from the floor,
raised her above his head, and with a
sickening thud, sent her body against
the solid masonry of the factory wall.
She lay there stunned, without mov
ing, moaning brokenly with pain, as
Legar darted back to the control lever
of the mangle drums and shifted that
lever to the spot marked “start.” The
next moment he had thrown over the
switch of the sluicegate control.
He ventured one triumphant glance
in the direction of the whirring
mangle knives and the slowly ascend
ing gate. Then, with a grimace of sat
isfaction, he leaped over the inert
body of the Laughing Mask, ran to the
door, and disappeared in the darkness.
Had that flight been less hurried
Legar might have observed that the
eyes of the Laughing Mask were open,
and the inert body, weak as it was
from the loss of blood from a flesh
wound in the hip, was already pain
fully gathering itself together for some
predetermined movement. That move
ment, wavering and unsteady as it
was, took the crawling man directly to
the control board of the water mangle.
There, by a supreme effort, he raised
himself to his feet, groped about with
an unsteady hand, and swung back
the lever.
The next moment the roar of the
machinery stopped, the threshing
knives stood poised. But it had been
only in the nick of time. For Mar
gery Golden, who had clung to the
sluicegate until its withdrawing bars
had compelled her to relax he. last
desperate clutch on its bars and drop
back into the black tid carrying her
closer and closer to those flailing
blades of death, now caught and clung
to a graphite-covered driving chain lit
tle more .hau a yard from the fore
most nangle drum which towered
above her like an open 'aw. And as
she clung there, a renewing wave of
hope swept through her body, for from
the sluiceway wall above her she could
hear a reissuring if somewhat un
steady voice calling down to her. And
that voice, she knew, was the voice
of the Laughing Mask!
(TO BE CONTINUED '