La Grande evening observer., June 13, 1917, Image 3

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 1917.
LA GRANDE EVBNTNG OBSERVER.
PAGE THREE
(This serial story is being shewn
and Thursday at Colonial theatre. '
the Colonial Theatre.)
8YN0P3I8.
I On Windward Island Palidori Intrigues
Mrs. Golden Into an appearance of svll
which causes Golden to capture and tor
(ture the Italian by branding his face and
icrushlng his hand. Polldorl opens the
dyke gates and floods the Island and In
nhe general rush to escape the flood kid
piapB Goldon's six-year-old daughter Mar-,
feory. Twelve year's 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
tLegar has delivered her, and takes her to
Hhe home of Knoch Golden, millionaire,
(whence she Is recaptured by Legar. Legar
And Stein are discovered by Manley, Gul
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 Legur.
Legar loots the Third National bank, but
again the Laughing Mask frustrates his
plans. "
SIXTH EPISODE ,
THE SPOTTED WARNING
I Enoch Golden had never formed the
(habit of taking others Into his confl
jdence. And when events came Into
bis life 'which seemed to leave him
pore and more dependent on his im
Imedlate associates he betrayed an oc
casional tendency to focus his neb
pilous resentment against that situa
tion on the exasperatlngly imperturb-
rble figure of David Manley.
"Young man," he said, fixing his sec
retary with a steely eye, "I came to
(this decision twenty long years ago,
and nothing Is going to change it. That
woman was sent from my home, and
he will never enter it again."
, Manloy, looking down at the note
still held In his hand, thought of the
jtroubled and tear-stained face of the
jglrl who had so recently clung to his
Arm and asked him to plead her cause.
And the memory of Margery Golden
jbrought fresh courage to him.
I "But this woman who was once your
pwn wife Is only asking for a glimpse
pf her own daughter again. Surely
(that is asking little enough!"
i "And I repeat that I won't allow It.
J. have saved my daughter from the
(dangers that woman's wrong surround
ed her with. I have saveJ her from "
i "Have you?" Interrupted Manley, de
liberately meeting the older man's
Btare.
! Any retort the older man was about
jto utter remained unspoken, for at
jthat moment a soft-treading footman
entered the room and crossed to the
desk with a salver of mall in his hand.
Manley. looking up, eyed that servant
Resentfully, and with a touch of sus
picion. This Intruder, he promptly
surmised, was a new figure in the
household retinue.
! "Bo so good as to knock when you
enter this room," was the young secre
tary's sharp command.
"Very good, sir," answered the new
footman, scarcely raising his eyes.
' "H'h!" Golden scoffed, looking up
from the letter which he had just
opened. "Since you're so ready to ask
favors, here's another friend to ask
them for. Here's the captain of the ;
Circle you're so ready to champion! I
But instead of asking favors you see,
he demands them!" j
i He tossed the folded sheet angrily
across the desk top. Manley took it
up and read it. j
"Your happiness hangs on one small
scrap of paper. That paper Is the 1
portion of the Windward island chart
Traces the Telephone Circuits.
jwhlch you still hold. Unless this Is
(delivered to me, and delivered as I
have already directed, the Spotted
Warning will come to your daughter
Margery. And the meaning of the
Spotted Warning she already under-
rands. JULES LEGAR."
"And what do you intend to do?"
aBKed Manley, sun staring aown at
Ithls strange note.
"Do you suppose," retorted Golden,
with a slightly tremulous finger al
ready on the bell, "that I'm going to
empty my safe to every blackleg who
bandies about a catch-word that be
longs to little Italy?"
"But what earthly use is this piece
of chart to you?" asked the yonnger
man.
In motba pictures every Wednesday
Read it in the Observer and see it at
"It's use to me is not the point at
iBsue," doggedly retorted the older
man.
"But one point at issue is at least
the safety of your daughter," contend
ed Manley, remembering only too well
the events of the immediate past
"And that, young man, is a responsi
bility which still rests on my own
shoulders," was Golden's curt retort as
the new footman stepped Into the
room in answer to his summons. "Tell
Miss Margery to come here at once."
As Margery quietly stepped Into the
room Golden stared at her for a mo
ment and then sank back into his
chair.
"What Is the Spotted Warning?" he
suddenly demanded.
The girl, with her troubled eyes bent
on the grim-lined face of her father,
did not speak at once.
"The Spotted Warning?" she re
peated, In a little more than a-whisper.
"Yes, what is that supposed to
mean?"
"It Is a warning of death," was the
girl's quietly enunciated reply. Man
ley could detect the tremor that sped
through her body. "And it means that
you have been hearing from Legar
again!"
"But what does Legar mean by it?"
asked Manley. "Why should he use
such a phrase?"
"It is a warning that comes to the
person who is about to die. It Is a
message of warning, spotted black. It
Is the last word they send. And I have
heard them say it has never failed
never once!"
But the indomitable old fighter at
the desk was once more on his feet.
"That Sicilian black-magic stuff
can't intimidate me," he thundered
out.
He turned to his daughter. "Until
this Calabrian brigand farce is played
out, I'm going to send you into the
country."
"But where are you sending me?"
asked the girl.
"I'm going to send' you out to your
Aunt Agatha's on Long Island!" was
his curt response as ho swung about
to his secretary. "And "while Mar
gery's getting her things together,
Manley, you send Train, the chauf
feur, here to me for his instructions."
Manloy, promptly crossing to the
door, was startled to find the figure of
the new footman standing close beside
it as it was swung open.
Ten minutes later, when Manley re
turned to the library with Train at his
heels, he found Enoch Golden staring
down at a sheet of paper lying on his
desk. At the center of this paper
stood a large black blot.
"It's the Spotted Warning," said
Golden, his heavy face furrowed with
a trouble deeper than he was willing
to admit. "But how, in God's name,
did it get here?"
Manley, after staring at the strangely-spotted
sheet, stared even more in
tently at the ceiling directly above the
point where the paper lay on the desk
top. A momentary look of satisfac
tion flitted across his face as Golden
turned to him with a crisp command
to precede Margery to Cedarton and
there explain both the reasons for her
visit and the precautions to be exer
cised during that visit.
"And as for you. Train," continued
the grim-eyed old millionaire, turning
to his chauffeur, "I want you to take
my daughter out to Cedarton as quick
ly as your car and the speed laws will
let you carry her. There are special
reasons for this, remember. And from
the moment you leave this house, don't
let anything or anybody stop you."
Thirty minutes later Margery Gold
en, surrounded by her .bags, sat back
In the swaying automobile, puzzled
over this new and unexpected turn
In the tido of events. And as mile by
mile swam by beneath the hurrying
wheels, the keen-eyed man in the drlv.
Ing seat found a load lifted from his
own shoulders.
Yet at the next turn in the road his
light-heartedness suddenly departed
from that keen-eyed driver. For as he
took this turn and speeded up along
a dustless stretch of open highway,
he saw a figure run out to the middle
of the road. It was not the fact that
this figure stood directly in his path
that most disturbed him. It was the
discovery, as he drew down on it,
that this figure wore a yellow band of
cloth across the eyes, with a moon
shaped apron falling almost to the end
of the nose, that brought the redoubt
able Train's heart suddenly up In his
mouth. But even while that figure
remained stubbornly and directly in
his path, motioning for him to stop,
he remembered his orders. Instead of
slackening his speed, In fact, he in
creased it. Increased It to the limit
of the engine's power. And he would
surely have ridden down that would
be Interceptor had not the latter, at
the last moment, leaped quickly aside.
Margery Golden, as he did so, half
rose In her seat, for she, too, had
caught sight of that mysteriously
shadowed face.
"But that was the Laughing Mask!"
she cried aloud, in wonder, as they
wept on.
A little later she was startled by a
quicE cry 01 warning nursling irom ine
driver's throat Staring ahead, she
saw that still another effort was being
made to Intercept them. This time it
was a man with a red flag. Instead of
stopping, the car swept past the man
! so close that its fender-end slapped
against the flagBtick itself as he re
peated his lusty shout of command.
But that command was more or less
lost on Train, a little dizzy now with
the sheer drunkenness of speed.
"Stop?" mocked the driver as he
raced on. "I'm going to stop for noth
ing this side of hell!"
Yet that valiant boast was little
more than the articulation of mortal
pride bo often preluding mortal disas
ter. For, bearing down on them along
that lonely stretch of roadway they
could already see a second car. The
point about this car that worried Train
was that it was not approaching them
as a well-behaved car should approach
a comrade vehicle, but vermlculated
drunkenly from one side of the road to
the other. Even Margery, as she
leaned forward, puzzling over theso
strange movements, realized that peril
was involved In passing a vlhicle so
uncertain of its course. -At the same
time, too, she could hear from far be
hind her the prolonged and warning
cry of an auto horn, wailing disturb
ingly through the quiet air of the late
afternoon. '
The next moment the two cars had
met, head-on.
There was a crash of metal and
glass, a rending of honey-comb radia
tors and coppered fenders.
What happened after that for all
time remained strangely' like a dream
to Margory. She remembered seeing
Train lying close beside his 'wrecked
car, with the blood trickling from his
wrist and staining his whip-cord uni
form. She remembered seeing other
figures, even more helpless looking.
But most of all she remembered how
one of these figures, pulling himself
together, had slowly risen to his feet.
As he did so he turned balf-stupidly
about and stared down at her. And the
moment she saw that pallid yet tri
umphant face she knew that it was Le
gar. She knew that he was confronting
her, that he was slowly but determin
edly making his way towards hor. And
she knew that In another moment she
would have boon their prisoner again
had not a sudden and unlooked-for In
terruption taken Ijlace.
This interruption came in the form
of a flying roadster, with a masked
figure leaning low out from Its run
ning board as it swept down on them.
She remembered the sudden shout of
the men, the sudden clutch of the
Uffl 1 iliilt IKW
"It Is a Warning of Death!" Was the Girl's Reply.
cUrong hand as It caught at her while
the roadster swept by, the equally sud
den pain through her bruised body as
she was swung safely up Into the seat
of the onward swerving car. She re
membered, too, the arm close about
her as she lay back, weak and pant
ing, as they danced and speeded on
along that lonely road. She remem
bered turning in through a stone gate,
winding along an orderly gravel dri . e
way, stopping before a vine-bowered
bungalow. She remembered, as the
masked man at her side helped her in
through an Ivory-white door, turning
dazedly to htm and asking who he was.
And she remembered the smile that
showed Just beneath the fringe of the
yellow domino as he shook his head
and the sense of deprivation that
swept" through her as she found her
self once more alone. Then from the
same door through which the Laugh
ing Mask had stepped, she remem
bered, she had seen a quiet-eyed wom
an come out, a quiet-eyed woman who
had crept up to her, with tears well
ing from her eyes and a smile of pity"
ing tenderness about her lips.
"Margery, don't you know me? Don't
yon remember your own mother?"
that quiet-eyed woman had asked as
she had taken her in her arms. And
as she stared up into that motherly
face, bent so close over her own, she
had said, with a gasp of bewilderment,
"Are you you the Laughing Mask?"
But her mother, she remembered, had
smiled, almost sorrowfully, and had
put a finger to her Hps.
The Tower of Destiny.
Enoch Golden, anxious and worn
out, sat waiting for some further word
as to the fate of his daughter Margery.
Nothing had come to htm since Train's
startling message of the collision and
the even more startling news of the
girl's mysterious disappearance. He
would have got little consolation from
a talk: that was taking place over the
servauts' telephone below stairs, part
of that guarded conversation was car
ried on by Wrench, the new footman,
and much of it bad to do with the very
situation so disturbing the aged million
aire In the room above. For It was Le
gar explaining that a masked stranger
at the last moment had snatched the
girl from their hands and had apparent
ly carried her off to some hiding place
of his own. This was followod by the
command to deliver still another mes
sage to Enoch Golden, with the final
warning that every wire leading Into
the Golden house must be cut as soon
as possible.
The new footman, in obedience to
these orders, quietly traced out the
telephone circuits to the basement and
there severed the wires with a pair of
scissors purloined for the purpose
from Mile. Celestlne'a workbag. Then,
watching his chance, he carefully
penned a note, wording it as Legar
had duly Instructed him to do. Then
he returned to the neighborhood of the
library door, with his ferretlike alert
nesB masked under his customary im
mobility of face.
It was not until hts restless master
discovered the telephone wires to be
dead, and went Btormlng through the
house to determine the reason for this
misadventure, that Wrench realized
his chance had come. Slipping Into
the deserted library on the pretext of
adjusting the rugs, he Btopped before
the rosewood table, hesitated a mo
ment, and then lifted the heavily
chased lid of Golden's cigar case and
dropped the note inside. A moment
later he had left the room, unobserved
and unsuspected.
It did not take many minutes of
waiting to confirm the wisdom of
Wrench's movement. For Enoch Gold
en, striding restlessly back into his
library, sank with a sigh of weariness
into the annchalr beside the rosewood
table. For a moment or two he stared
abstractedly and unhappily about him.
Then, with still another sigh, he
reached out and lifted the heavily
chased lid of stiver. Hts fingers, in
stead of coming in contact with a per
fecto corseted in gold, rustled against
a sheet of paper. Automatically he
picked It up and unfolded It.
Written on that mysterious sheet he
found the following:
"To fight me further In this is use
less. And unless you open your eyes
to this fact It will soon be worse than
useless. It will be fatal. I repeat that
I want your half of that chart. If you
want your daughter to live, want her
sent back to you, take that chart to
the twenty-fourth floor of the Central
Tower building, within the next hour,
and hand it to the man In the black
ulster who will be waiting there. No
trickery can succeed. And this Is your
last chance! JULES LEGAR."
Silently the beaten man stared down
at this strange missive. Slowly as he
did so, the last of his once Iron will
melted away.
He rose heavily from his chair and
crossed to the vault. From this vault
he took the map, the time-yellowed
square of manilla about which so many
of the sorrows and troubles of all his
life seemed to revolve. Then, calling
for his hat and coat and ordering a
car, he tremblingly made ready for his
midnight visit of capitulation to the
Central Tower building.
While these events were taking
place, however, there was one member
of the Golden household who remained
far from Jnactlve. When David Man
ley bo abruptly left a tranquil bunga
low at Cedarton and so stealthily
pushed his way through the shrubbery
surrounding that bungalow, it was be
cause he had r-nde the sudden dis
covery that I.csiir himself was In the
neighborhood. Nor was it hard for
him to guess the reason for that master-criminal's
invasion of those seques
tered grounds. And Manley, promptly
deciding to stalk the stalker himself,
was rewarded by overhearing enough
of Lcgar's plans, as the latter hurried
ly Issued his Instructions to two of his
confederates near the roadside, to
realize the necessity of at once get
ting in touch with Enoch Golden.
Whatever happened, he felt, It was hts
duty to warn Margery's father that
Legar himself had acknowledged his
Ignorance of the girl's whereaboutB
and had expressed his intention of
tricking the chart out of its present
owner's hands.
Ten minutes of frantic efforts at a
telephone booth In the nearby village,
however, convinced Manley of the Im
possibility of getting In touch with
Golden by wire.
Manley's first thought, in his dllom
ma, was to commandeer some nearby
car. Yet nothing but a racer, he re
membered as he snatched out his
watch, could get him to the Central
Tower building in time.
His next thought, however, took him
tearing down the village street like a
madman. For the name of "Cedarton"
had brought Into his mind yet another
name, the name of "Bobby Evart." And
Bobby Evart, who bad his workshop
and' hangar on the southerly outskirts
of that village, had- been the first of
the Racquet club members to forsake
automobiles for aviation, and startle
Long Island by his early morning
hydroplane maneuvers over suburban
golf courses and country homes. He
had been the first civilian volunteer
for the federal air scouts and at San
Diego had twice broken his own alti
tude record established at Pensacola,
and was now immured in the mysteri
ous task of fashioning a stabilizer for
monoplanes, a stabilizer, - Manley re-.
membered, which was receiving sym
pathetic attention from certain navy '
officials in Washington. j
Instead of finding this same in
trepid Bobby poring over blue prints
of stabilizer parts, however, the breath-,
less Manley found his old-time friend
In a rattan club chair tranquilly play
ing chess with his maiden aunt .In
two minutes the breathless newcomer
had explained to the somewhat as
ed young chess player a situation
which brought a brighter light into
the lattor's boyish eyes.
. 'The point Is," cried Manley, "could
you got me there. Could you make a .
landing at night?" (
They were already on their feet
again, running for the hangar.
"Yes, I can get you there! But what
have we got to make a landing on?"
"The main building of the Central
tower stops at the eighteenth Btory.
That gives us a flat roof of several
hundred yards. Could you make It on
that?"
"Not unless it was lightod!" ex
plained Evart, shouting for his
mechanician as he rounded the gloomy
corner of the hangar itsolf.
"But It Is lighted," Manley told him
"It gets the light from the tower itself,
and the wbole cornice line is strung
with electrics, the same as the Singer
building!"
Evart's finger, touching a button,
threw a white flood across the vaulted
roof of the -building. A touch on an
other button sent the great doors
swinging open. Manley looked at his
watch. Then he shook his head.
"It's too late," ho proclaimed. But
Evart and his mechanician were al
ready at work on the wide-winged
monstrosity nested under its motal
roof like a pterodactyl In a cave.
"Got aboard," commanded Evart.
"We're going to try for it anyway!"
He turned to his helper. "Hey, Brown,
throw my friend up that fur coat of
yours!"
"But what speed can you get out of
this machine?" asked Manley as ho
clambered aboard the chassis and
strugglod with hlB seat-straps.
Evart, who had been stooping over
his engines, looked up.
"I got one hundrod and four an hour
out of her this morning," he off-hand-edly
announced. "But I think I can
push her up to one hundred and ten."
Manley's htsart beat faster.
"Then there's a chance!" he cried.
"A fighting chance."
A sudden sense of chill caused Man
loy to clutch for the fur coat thrown
in at his feet, and struggle Into It.
As he did bo the earth seemed sud
denly to fall away from him. Villages
became spangled checker-boards of
lights. Highways became winding
strings of pearls.
Manley forgot the chilliness striking
into his bones. He forgot Margery
Golden and Legar. He forgot the ori
gin of bis mission that brought him
winging through the midnight heav
ens. He forgot the fact of his own
puny existence and the trivial ends to
which it had been given over. All
these he forgot, completely and utter-
ly, until Evart, sweeping out along
the twinkling shore lights of South
Brooklyn, circled north again -where
the brazen figure of Liberty guarded
the upper bay, and dropped lower
along that tapering point of gloom
where Battery park nosed like a ship's
prow into the tides of the Atlantic.
They wore still planing down, gently,
like a settling sea bird, with the tilted
planes veering a little westward to es
cape the beetling skyscrapers along
the canyon of lower Broadway.
Manley thought, for a moment, that
Evart had misjudged his position.
Then he folt Buro that Evart had also
misjudged his height, that his stabil
izing fin was already too low to clear
the flat roof that abutted the light-
strewn towur noun.
But Evart, obviously, knew what
he was about. For he took that ob
long of flat gloom outlined In electrics
with a gentle upward undulation like
the upward swoop of a bluebird alight
ing on a maple tree. Into that artful
upward swoop was absorbed much of
their momentum, for Evart had plain
ly remembered that their running
space was limited. But even with this
precaution there remained a perilous
paucity of runway, for before the
bounding and quivering organism of
nickel and steel and canvas came to
a stop it lurched head-on Into a wall
of the tower Itsolf.
Manley could hear the crash of glass
as the damper plane at the nose of
the quivering chassis brought up short
against one of tho tower windows.
He was dimly aware of half-tumbling j
and half-climbing through a network ,
of wooden Btuta and steel piano-wire 1
stays and cross-guys. He was vaguely
conscious of Evart calling out that ev
erything waB all right, that there was
no damage which a half-hour's work
couldn't patch, up,
But Manley, in truth, was thinking
little of either Evart or hts flier. All
his thoughts, as he climbed frantically
up through the broken tower window,
were revolving about the problem as
to whether or not he was too late.
And that all-vital question still ob
sessed him as he mounted the iron
treads of the stairway leading to the
tower top, panting up flight after flight
until hlB lungs seemed bursting tor
want of air, and his over-driven heart
beat drumlike against his rib-cage.
And as he reached the top and flung:
out through the narrow door opening
They Fought With Gasps and Grunts,
on the campanile-like balcony crown
ing that skyscraplng structure, he
knew, even as he saw two figures
standing there ' before him, that he
was too late. ,
That much he knew, 'even before he
caught at enough breath to call out
a warning to Enoch Golden or swing
about and spring for the second figure,
already shrinking back in the shadow
of that many-columned cupola. For in
the hand of the second figure Manley
had already caught Bight of a tell-tale
sheet of paper. It was a yellowed
and time-worn scrap of paper, and lit
tle more, but to Manley it had become
the emblem and pennon of a desperate
cause, a flag to be rallied round and
fought for, to the last ditch and the
lust' gasp, "as harrltd soldiers fight'
through the smoke of battle for their
colors.
And Manley, as he clinched with Le
gar's stalwart emissary, fought for it.
Nor was" his opponent one to be de
spised. The two men fought along the
crest of that midnight tower as two
mountain Hons might fight a'ong' the
brink of an Andean precipice. They
fought with gasps and grunts, with
strange guttural Bounds, with teeth
bared and face distorted, blind to the
blows that were given and taken, un
conscious of the fact that the very pa
per for which they were fighting had
already fallen to the cupola floor, and
from there had been blown by the
north wind to the furthermost edge of
tho cornice circling the stone' column
supports.
Golden himself was already reaching
for that paper when Legar's confed
erate caught sight of It, broke from
Manley's grasp and dove bodily for
where It lay. Manley, a second later,
followod him. There, halt astride the
Daiustrade or coppered wood -painted
to look like marble, the flght was re
newed. Each crouched low as he
fought, drunkenly conscious now of
the abyss that yawned so close to his)
feet. But still they fought.
Then a second breath of night
breeze, sighing through the tower top,
carried the paper slowly along the
cornice edge. It. was Legar's man who
saw it as it moved. He wrenched
away, twisted about, and caught at it
as it fell. But already he was too
late. It lifted with the wind, drifted
and eddied slowly about In the moon
light, and floated swaylngly down into
the darker canyon of Broadway, where
it was soon lost to sight.
But neither Manley nor his enemy
saw that descent, for Legar's man as
he lurched suddenly forward threw all
nis weigiu on ine outstanding copper
! cornice, painted whlto to look like
marble. And It was a cornice made
only for ornamentation, and not for
support. For Its fastenings surren
dered to tho strain of that suddenly
Imposed weight and the buckling seg
ment of copper swayed outward as the
desperately-clinging fingers olutcbed
at its edges.
Manley, hanging to the balustrade
with one arm, reached out to grasp
that buckling strip of metal to which
a helpless man was hanging sheer
over space. He caught at It, even as
Golden caught at his straining shoul
ders to hold him steady.-
But a law, stronger than the will of
man, seemed to suck the metal slowly.
Inevitably, out of the clutch of his
tired fingers. Then the last fastenings
gave, the strained and twisted sheet
metal tore slowly .iway, and the black
shadow of a man fell like a plummet to
the Iron and stone of Broadway, three
hundred foet below.
(TO BE CONTINUED.) ;