Summary
In a fog-choked Greenwich Village parlour that smells of burnt cardamom and kerosene, John Fenton—garbed like a displaced poet—asks a turbaned sybil to exhume the ghost of his origin. Instead, the ceiling erupts with sirens; he flees upward, fingers blistering on rusted iron, and crashes into a tableau of velvet gore: Belle Charmion, all cheekbones and chloroform breath, hovering over her half-brother’s twitching body, the pistol still kissing his temple. Gordon Brewster, petty thief and heir to a bloodline of gargoyles, has swallowed a diamond necklace rather than the law. Fenton—nose bleeding starlight—swaps identities with the dying boy, donning guilt like an ill-tailored tuxedo while the real Brewster is stashed behind a Japanese screen. Jewels vanish, re-appear, vanish again, ferried by a butler whose smile is a switchblade. By the time Fenton uncovers his own cradle in a sepia kidnap ledger, the city has become a vast Möbius strip of mirroring rooftops and subterranean speakeasies; love, the only contraband left unstolen, slips a ring of forgiveness onto Belle’s ink-stained finger.
Synopsis
John Fenton visits a fortune-teller to gain insight into his parentage. While there, a police raid occurs, and he climbs the fire escape to the apartment above. There he finds a girl standing over the body of a young man who has just shot himself. The girl, Belle Charmion, explains that her half brother, Gordon Brewster, had stolen some jewels from their uncle and, fearing that the police would capture him, had attempted suicide. Fenton conceals the brother in another room and impersonates him when the police arrive. Later, he and Belle take Brewster to his uncle's home. In the excitement, the jewels have been forgotten, and Fenton returns to search for them. By this time, the family butler, who is a member of an underworld gang, has tipped off his friends, who then steal the Fenton jewels. At the butler's home, a scuffle ensues; Fenton recovers the jewels and learns that he is actually a distant relative of the Charmions, having been kidnapped in infancy by a crook. With both mysteries thus resolved, Belle and Fenton become engaged.
