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PAGE EIGHT1 FRIDAY. .TANTTAPV on f . " ivi. f AUTHOR. OF -THE OCCASIONAL OFFENDER' -THE WIRE TAPPERS, "GUN RUNNERS, ETC NOVELIZED FROM THE PATHE PHOTO PLAY OF THE SAME NAME COPYRIGHT, V .RTHUR. STRINGER, 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 floods the is land and kidnaps Golden's little daughter Margery. Twelve years later in New York a Masked One rescues Margery from Le 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 Legar. Legar sends 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 iaugning Mask. Count Da Espares figures in a dubious attempt to entrap Legar and claims to have billed him. Golden's house is dvnamited during1 a masked ball. 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. Mar frery is saved from death at, the hands oi he Iron Claw by the Laughing Mask. TWELFTH EPISODE The Haunted Canvas. The daughter of Dan O'Mara was a ivery happy -girl. So happy, in fact, jtras the freckled-nosed Peggy that ithere were times when the sheer nov jelty of her good fortune somewhat jfrightened her. .For the tide had ttfrned. The O'Mara family, as Peggy ipt it, was at last in clover. That mys terious righter of wrongs known as the Laughing Mask had interested ! himself in . getting honest work for J Dan O'Mara. And that gracious-eyed lady known as Margery Golden, once she had realized the true position of the family, had become equally inter allied in doing what she could for the fsjindle-legged Peggy. -?It is true, none the less, that this jlafjt-mentioned young lady's benefac jtjiss had been momentarily nonplus sid jtly Peggy's choice of a vocation, when itias choice was placed before her. "What would you like to do most?" iHargery had asked at the end of her second trip to the O'Mara cottage with a bundle of clothes for the all but breathless Peggy. "Be a artist's model!" promptly an nounced the rapt-eyed factory girl. "But why a model?" asked the Amazed Miss Golden. "To doll up in glad rags and get meself painted!" explained the dream er of the dye vats. And odd as that choice seemed to he?, Margery Golden did not depart from her promise. She nought out her artist friend, Frank J Aimick, and inveigled him to experi ment with a new and somewhat un tried model. Frank Aimick, however, soon found the ardent-eyed young Peggy more of j ftjhelp to him than he had anticipated. -Borne of her unctuous yet uncouth at- titudinizing, in fact, brought a smile to the face of the busy artist. f But that smile was never broader j than when he noticed her standing ! wide-eyed before the large canvas above the fireplace at the end of his studio. For this painting, which bore vtne title of "The Vigilante," was a re- ! g&arkabie piece or work, in more ways jtan one. It showed the life-size fig ure of a frontiersman staring out fnto the room, with a leveled carbine at Jiis buckskinned shoulder. But the ar Testing feature of the painting lay j in the fact that both the eyes of the j figure and the barrel of the leveled ! rifle seemed always to be directed at I the spectator, no matter what position j the spectator might take. ' "That guy gives me the willies!" 3Peggy protested as she made her way back to the model throne. i "Why?" asked the smiling man at ; the easel. j i - "He keeps such a bead on you, no , patter where you get in this room ! " -was the girl s reply. But destiny, in the form of one Jules Legar, had secretly ordained that Peggy's happiness should not be a last-' lag one. For Peggy O'Mara was no j longer a trivial factor in the activities i of the Iron Claw. This slip of a girl j had brought defeat to his plans when ' -success seemed well within his hand, -j And for these humiliations Legar de- j cided that the girl. should pay, and pay j to the full. j The modest home of the O'Maras, ! however, nad no inkling of this deci sion until Dan O'Mara himself, wan dering about his combined kitchen and living room in search of his pipe, was somewhat startled to see a square of paper pinned to the faded door panel. Peggy herself, joining her father, was equally mystified by this slip of paper, for its surface sliowed nothing but a rcund blot or two of black ink on a square of white. Neither Dan O'Mara nor his daughter had any reason to know the meaning of the spotted warning, any more than they knew that one Mauki, the stealthy emissary of the Iron Claw, stood hidden behind .the walls of one of the three cottages commanding a clear view of tho 'Mara home. ; They had no way of knowing that jthis same Mauki lurkd there behind a shattered window, patiently watchi:ag, ijotx after hour the fcovss across the Vay. Closs b&gid Mm as be waUl.oa stood a magazine rifle to which a Max im silencer had been adjusted. And on the floor beside the rifle lay yet another weapon. This, however, was a weapon of defense, for it consisted of a craftily constructed cape which, for purposes of disguise, could be promptly converted into a woman's skirt. So sure was Mauki of his defensive arrangements that when he caught sight of Peggy O'Mara and her father at the window he promptly reached for his rifle, adjusted the barrel be tween the shutter slats, and took aim. Then he pulled the trigger. The next moment a bullet went crashing through the. window of the O'Mara home. Instinctively the two startled fig ures leaped away from the window. As they did so they realized that a third person had entered the room. And a second glance showed them that it was the Laughing Mask him self. He stood for a moment or two, star ing down at the spotted warning that lay face upward on the floor. Then he stared at the shattered window. The next moment he was pushing Peggy and Dan O'Mara bodily back from that square of light. "But what's the meanin' of all this, anyway?" demanded the astonished householder. "It means that a bullet came through that window," the Laughing Mask ex plained. "And I know that bullet was intended for your daughter here." The next moment the Laughing Mask had caught a broom from the corner and about it was draping one of Peggy O'Mara's well-worn waists. Above this he placed the girl's hat, tying it in place with a scarf. Then dropping to his knees well out of sight on one side of the window, he slowly advanced his improvised dummy into the square of light. That rough outline of a human fig ure was scarcely in position at the window before a second pane crashed in and the broom was knocked from the hand of the masked, man hold ing it. "That shot could have come only from one of those three houses across the way. And it's ten to one it's from that empty house on the right!" He drew away from the window and stood for a moment deep in thought. "O'Mara, I want you to slip out by your back door and get help. Call on any neighbors you can trust in a case like this. Then hurry back here, for I don't want that scoundrel to suspect his plans haven't worked out exactly as he imagines!" "We'll get the divil!" announced O'Mara as he slipped away. And while waiting for his return the Laughing Mask sent Peggy for a cupful of flour. With this he powdered her hands and blanched her thin young face. Dan O'Mara had stepped back into the house before the masked visitor had completed his task. "Now, I want that sniper to think he's done his work, I don't want him to break from cover until your friends have surrounded that house. So take your daughter and carry her out, just as though she were a dead girl." Dan O'Mara, doing as he was di rected, stepped from the doorway with his own white-faced daughter hanging limp in his arms. He acted his part with a sincerity that was not without conviction. For, two minutes after he had staggered into the open with that apparently sad burden, the sniper from the shuttered house was detected slip ping out of a cellar window and scur rying along a broken fence. That escape, however, came before Dan O'Mara's friends could completely take up thejr position about the sus pected house. But one of those friends caught sight of the fugitive in the strange-looking cape, the alarm was given, and the pursuit began. It was not a long chase, but it was a stern oner Determined as those in dignant factory-toilers were to run down the mysterious gunman so wan tonly threatening their, 'homes, the fleeing Mauki proved himself starting ly fleet of foot.-e gained Sufficiently on his pursuers to round a corner, dodge into an empty coalshed, and emerge a moment later as a stooped old woman in amber-colored spectacles and a rusty gray wig. Being obviously hard of hearing, this same old woman could not give much information, to the group of excited men suddenly ac costing her as she hobbled across the street. Five minutes later a swarthy-skinned man with wiry black hair was hurry ing across country to one of the well concealed dens of Jules Legar, where he duly reported to the Iron Claw the news of his enemy'3 ruse and his own narrow escape. Before the second day had passed Legar had evolved yet another plan for the subjugation of his enemies. This took the form of a decoy mes sage delivered to the unsuspecting Peggy O'Mara, purporting to be a hasty request from Frank Aimick to come to his studio at nine o'clock that night, to the end that he might hurry to completion one of his unfinished j canTMs f,r which the girl vrsm at Ing as a costume model. Legar and two of his followers, in the meantime, entered Aimick's studio on the pre tense of being a fire marshal's inspec tor, caught the artist off his guard, and carried him bound and gagged and helpless to one of the small hack! rooms of the studio building. Peggy herself, before starting out in answer to that summons, was still somewhat uneasy in mind over recent events. So she left word with her father to call for her not later than eleven o'clock. But more than Dan O'Mara called for his daughter that night, for ten minutes after her departure from the cottage Margery Golden's limousine drew tip at the door. Margery's eyes widened when O'Mara explained the reason of his daughter's absence from home. ' "But an artist like Frank Aimick would never be able to work at night," she argued, with growing alarm. "He must have daylight for working in color." Dan O'Mara turned to the table at his side. "Here's his message, plain as day, written in his own handwritin'," was the puzzled workman's only explana tion. Margery took the message in her hand and studied it. Then her color faded a little. "That is not Frank Aimick's writ ing!" she suddenly announced. "We must get to that studio as fast as my car can carry us. Peggy O'Mara, in the meantime, was being confronted by more "than one surprise. The first came with her arrival at the Aimick studio, when the stranger who opened the door in response to her knock informed her that the artist was out, but would re turn in a minute or two. The sec ond came with the quiet movement of yet. another man who sidled up to the studio door and promptly locked and barred it. But the greatest sur prise of all awaited her as she turned "It Means That a Bullet from the door and saw Legar. himself Etanding before her. She stood there, white lipped, star ing from one evil face 'to the other as Legar's companions closed in about her. "You're a fine bunch o' cradle snatchers!" she finally and wrathfully burst out at them, with the ultimate and reckless anger of desperation in her eyes. "You're a grand army o' heroes, you are, to come five strong agin' a girl like me!" "Stop that brat!" commanded the irate Legar. And there was a general movement in the direction of the blazing-eyed girl. There was one man in that group, however, who did not join in that movement. The reason for this lay in the fact that at that moment he happened to be looking up at the paint ing of "The Vigilante." He was about to reach for a heavy easel-peg, to fling at the canvas, when he suddenly straightened up, clapped a, hand to his shoulder, and turned about. There was a look of mingled wonder and incredulity on his face. Then he slowly drew from the fleshy part of his upper arm a small steel dart,, little bigger than a knitting needle. The next moment a second man, moving across the room to catch up a curtain cord with which to tie the captured girl, felt a sudden sting in his hip, stopped abruptly and point ed with a shout of anger toward the canvas above the mantel. Still another of Legar's followers, not realizing the meaning of that cry, stepped .forward and stared at the painting. . Out of the barrel-end of the painted rifle, as he did so, shot still another dart which buried itself in his heck. . . "Th darts!" he mumbled, as thick ly as a drunken man might. "Th' dart3 're drugged!" But even before those mumbled words, were spoken the swarthy skinned Mauki, trying to hold the still struggling Peggy O'Mara down on a divan, felt a sharp pain above his shoulderblade, turned about, and saw Legar run across tho room and catch up the heavy brass fire tongs from be side the mantel end. "Th painting!" squeaked Mauki. Etajseriag ot againit : sichUK i t-l tAdMfJfft ' throne. "Tho paintingit is eplfc ting steel at us!" Legar, however, was no longer in need of that warning. Standing to one side of the mantel, close beside the wall, he attacked the huge can vas with his fire-tongs, heating in the center of the picture at the same time that Peggy O'Mara, realizing that she was no longer being held a pris- f oner, caught up a teakwood tabou- ret and with It precipitated her self on the preoccupied Legar. He ignored that flank attack, how ever, for the Iron Claw suddenly found himself confronted by a figure of more importance than either the spindle legged girl or a painted gunman. Out from behind that tattered can vas had emerged a man wearing a yellow mask, tossing to one side a slender blowpipe as he came. Before he could regain his feet after that hur ried leap from the mantel shelf, Legar himself had dropped the fire tongs and whipped a revolver from his pocket. This he leveled directly at the body of the Laughing Mask. But before he could pull the trigger, Peggy's tabouret struck against his out stretched arm, knocking the weapon up in the air. By thi3 time the Laughing Mask was up on his feet, and face to face withhis enemy. Before the revolver could again be brought into play the two had clenched., Then the Iron Claw went down before a clean-cut blow from his opponent. He recovered him self sufficiently, however, to roll to where his fallen revolver lay. But before he could level that firearm at his adversary the Laughing Mask, re membering that even the officers of I the law were no longer his friends, dived out through the small door at the rear of the studio and disappeared from sight, for already the sound of O'Mara and his rescuing party could be heard as they swarmed up the stairs. The Iron Claw himself heard those sounds, drew himself together, and Came Through That Windowl" stared helplessly about the disman tled studio. Then the instinct of self preservation reasserted itself. He ran to the back of the room, dived into a kitchenette, found a small door in its wall, swung it open, discovered a dumb-waiter shaft in front of him, and escaped to the street. The Corridors of Dread. Margery Golden, as she sat in the taxicab which carried her homeward, was comforted by the thought that she had at least saved the life of a factory girl to whom she stood indebted for her own escape from-' death. The further thought that she had sent Dan O'Mara and his exhausted daughter safely home in- her own luxurious limousine even reconciled her to the somewhat stuffy-aired public convey ance in which she found herself. She blinked meditatively out at the back of the heavy faced driver so sullenly and yet so adroitly piloting her through the tangle of traffic. Then the abstraction suddenly went from her eyes and the listlessness from her pose. For, from: the back window of the red-wheeled taxicab immediately in front of her she caught sight of a peering face. . And It took v no second glance, to tell her that it , was the deep-seared face of the Iron ClaW him self. - y The next moment Margery was shouting to her sullen-faced driver. "Follow that red-wheeled taxi," she told him, pointing down the side street. "Keep within sight of it, what ever happens!" - Soon they had left the city well be hind them ancf were in that twilight zone whicn is neither quite rural nor quite urban. But Margery; the mo ment she-saw the red-wheeled taxicab come to a stop, commanded her driver to draw in - under the ' shadow of a dense row of catalpa tees. There, from the running board of her car, she beheld Legar step out on the road, pay his chauffeur, and stand looking after the departing taxicab until it dis appeared from sight. Then he turned about, pushed his way in through a tangle of shrubbery, and left the lone ly roadside as empty as a desert trail. Then the resolute browed young wo man turned to her chauffeur. "I'm gains to foHew that man. If I I fall U refra hr fi2 cf .tea cl - mm ML W&rJi vzzzzi f t n i I'M i s"4vsfZ'$ '"JJ ' ' , v f Then He utes, I want yoa to get any help you can, and come after me." Margery stole along the shadowy roadside to the spot where she had seen Legar creep in through the bushes. She followed as best she could, found herself face to face with a tunnel-opening that showed itself dimly in the moonlight, and after a moment's hesitation stooped low and crept into this tunnel, feeling her way cautiously along the smooth brickwork of its walls. She came to a turn, but tressed with heavier masonry, and padded along this wall until her grop ing fingers came in contact with a light switch. This, after a moment's thought, she turned on. The next mo ment a number of bulbs along the cor ridor roof above her flowered into light. Staring ahead of her, she saw that the corridor ended in nothing but a blank wall. But as she stared intently at the wall she detected in one side of j it a partially concealed electric but- j ton. She moved toward this cautious- j ly, for she had learned of old to be ; wary of approach to any of Legar's fastnesses. Then, as she advanced, she came to a sudden stop. For she saw on the flagstone upon which she was about to step a small cross. There .was also a minute crevice, unnotice able iu its companions, about this quadrangle so suspiciously marked by its eross. So she stepped carefully over the suspected area, crept forward to the button, and touched it with a tentative fingertip. The next moment a remarkable thing happened. A section of the heavy masonry shutting off the end of the corridor, at that touch, swung silently about on its axis, leaving an aperture wide enough for a human body to pass through. The girl, hold ing her breath, stepped through the ponderous masonry- k This chamber, she saw, was empty, except for two mysterious strands of iron chain that ran from ceiling to floor; close against the wall, while against the other stood a deal table and a camp couch across which lay a couple of very dirty blankets. But along the floor at the far end of the room her quick eye detected a thin pencil of light. So she tiptoed quietly forward until she stood close to the door above this illuminated crevice. Then she stooped lower, listening in tently, for the sound of muffled voices came to her from the room within. "I tell you we can't afford to fail in this move," she heard the voice of Legar himself annQunce. "The thing's got to be settled, and settled before morning!" . "But how?" asked one of bis fol lowers. '.'With two pounds of guncotton and a time fuse," was Legar's reply. "In the O'Mara cottage?" asked an other voice. "Yes; I want that cottage wiped oft the face of the earth, and the. family with it! And I want it done before morning!" Margery listened, oblivious of the passing of time, as the conspirators behind the closed door continued to debate on theif plan of action.' Then she started, even as much as they did, when the sudden buzzing of an elec tric annunciator warned that intent group of an intruder's approach. It was then and only then that the girl remembered her parting message to the taxicab driver. All that was left her to do was to dart over to the camp cot, and drop down on the stone floor beside it. ' The next, moment Legar and his men were in the outer chamber. While one of the men crept to a secret out look crevice in the farther wall Le gar himself stepped to one of the con trol chains which ran from floor to ceiling on the other side of the room, and by pulling one of these started into action some mysterious mech anism which the watching girl could not quite comprehend. She saw them run back to the inner room and stand waiting While Legar manipulated still another secret spring which threw open a hidden , door in the back .wall,' of that . room. And that door, she surmised, lei by some unknown passage to the outer "world. ' But Margery did not give much thought 'to this, for there came to her as she regained her feet the repeated cry of a human being, a cry husky with terror. She ran to the pivot door in the masonry, swung it back, and there beheld a sight which made her blood run cold. It took her. In fact, a ponderable space of time to under stand the scene confronting her. But as he stared out she saw where her un uapecting chauffeur had stepped ea tU cress-marked fiatoat, tor it Pulled the Trigger. was now several inche3 lower tl the rest of the floor. And thL:, cV viously, had released a steel c 'r. which had swung suddenly forward n swept the startled intruder r t against the stone wall, holding there as in a vise. And as he Ft, pinioned there a great block of s' ite, released by some hidden r-. chinery, was slowly descending t'r; s the roof of the corridor. Margery quickly manipulated tho chains and re leased the chauffeur. "Let me at 'em!" he shouted, bran, dishing the automobile wrench whirh he still carried in hi3 hand. "Just let me at 'em!" "It's no use," cried , Margery, hoJi'.. ing him back. "They 'haye gone, tyj lot of them. And we've got to foil -a quickly, or there'll be a: Whole f r ily meet a worse' " fa'te- than y ra might have been triiirht!" She had taken the .-wrench from x a hand and was leading Jzim out o; t: 3 tunnel mouth by, this 'time, ex) -Ing that he would haya to brin i.'.i taxicab from its hiding place and ;t once, start in pursuit of the Iron CInw. But these explanations came to a ? -t . den and an unexpected ending, for gar and his followers, skulkin?: in the bushes, caught that betraying sound of voices and saw a chance that was too good to be missed. They closed ia on the girl and the taxi-driver. Yet that sullen-spirited driver, when cor nered, fought with an energy so ex plosive that the entire circle becamo involved in the struggle. It was Lo gar himself, and only Legar, who had the presence of mind to direct the at tention towards the girl. He .swung suddenly about and started for her. She saw him coming, raised the heavy wrench she still carried and sent it flat against his bony temple and tcofe to her heels. She jumped into t!.9 empty taxicab and headed for tb O'Mara cottage. So colorless was her face as the be wildered Dan O'Mara opened the tcr.r that he started back in alarm. And her words were even more disturb ing. "Come away!" she called out. "Come quick, or it will be too lato! "And what's wrong now?" asked the astounded householder. "Get Peggy!" gasped the girl as she stared frantically about the little room. "Get her away from here, quick! The house has been mined! There's been a bomb left here, and any mo ment " She stopped speaking, for the p!.r. gent smell of powder smoke had as sailed her nostrils. Then from tho open window, in which a somewhat neglected flower-box stood, came a faint sputter of sound. She ran to the window. Lying ,n the flower-box she saw a heavy cylinder of metal. Even before f-Ve caught sight of the time-fuse whh h quietly hissed and burned at one c d of the cylinder, she knew what it v;w- It was the infernal machine which Le gar's agent had placed there to de stroy the house. And at any momeist the explosion might take place. Margery caught the heavy cylinder up in her hands. She even tried to blow out the fuse. But this was use less. Then she tried to tear it avay. But this second effort was equally fruitless. And sheer panic took 10 session of her at the thought oi htr helplesness. The bomb dropped fro?a 'her fingers to the floor. She made ere instinctive effort to warn poor yow- Peggy O'Mara away, as the girl r;.a to her side. But instead of repenting that warning she let her arms c'u-''-about the slender body as though 'mute acknowledgment that she kTie v?. was already too late. For the fusts ' could see, was burning down into : end of the cylinder itself. She -.' ' n closed her eyes, awaiting tho j v itable. She opened them r.jrain, at the f i of a sudden step. She opened t to see a-masked figure dart jnto ' room, catch up the smoking cylinder, and with one raid the f movement hurl it out through open window. The next moment a great dtf'':' tion shook the walls of that hoi:;; The bomb had exploded. Hut ' house of O'Mara still stood. Peggy and her father stared ! -"-' mouthed at the newcomer, who, y stead of staring back at them, ! 1 -. Intently regarding Margery Gohh "The Laughing Mask!" said tt somewhat shaken young lady, in ihi more than a whisper. "At your service!" replied the mr.a in the yellow mask, with a hali bum ble and half-mocking bow aa he etof. for one fleeting moment, is tha tai row doorway. (To E3 .conti:juj;.);. :
The Warren Record (Warrenton, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Jan. 26, 1917, edition 1
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