Summary
A bank manager’s embezzlement metastasizes into matricide, mistaken identity, and a dynastic curse that spans two decades: Hugo Gaspard fakes a robbery, murders the watchman, vanishes beneath a cadaverous alias, then unknowingly burgles his own estranged wife, shooting her while their grown son—ignorant of both paternal guilt and maternal survival—stands condemned for the crime. The watchman’s orphaned daughter, now a luminous star of the stage, infiltrates Gaspard’s poisoned paradise, weaponizing chloroform and handwriting to unmask him; he dies shackled by his own spring-locked sewer gate as dynamite razes the manor, leaving the lovers to wed atop the rubble of inherited sin.
Synopsis
Hugo Gaspard, manager of the Monopol Bank, appropriates money deposited in his charge and finds himself face to face with ruin. Learning that there is to be an inspection of his books, he breaks into the bank at night in order to pretend that the place has been robbed by burglars. He is surprised by Wallis, the night watchman, whom he shoots. Fatally wounded, Wallis manages to write a note convicting Gaspard before he dies, and detectives are sent to arrest the manager. Gaspard escapes from the detectives and succeeds in fleeing to a distant town. Later on he learns that he need no longer fear the police, as a man killed on the railway is believed to be himself. Twenty years later Gaspard's wife has changed her name to Graham. An inherited fortune provides for herself and her son Arthur, whom she has brought up in ignorance of his father's crime. Iris, the daughter of the night watchman, has become a stage star. Whilst resting in the country she meets Arthur and the couple fall in love. Arthur's mother learns that Iris is the daughter of her husband's victim, but she does not make her identity known to the girl. When Iris return to the city to rehearse for a new production, Arthur, finding life impossible without her, follows, but becomes involved in money difficulties and appeals to his mother for help. His mother advances him money, but tells him that he must go away. On leaving the house that night Arthur misses the last train to town, so is forced to return home. In the meantime Gaspard has continued his life of crime under the name of Ralston. His confederate, Jacobs, suggests that he rob the lonely house in which Mrs. Graham lives, and Gaspard, unaware that Mrs. Graham is his own wife, plans the robbery, taking with him Jacobs' little daughter Girda. The girl is forced to climb through a small window into the house, after which she opens the front door for Gaspard. On gaining admittance he sends back the girl with a note to Jacobs, telling him that his plan is certain of success. Whilst robbing the safe in the house Gaspard is surprised by his wife. He shoots her and makes his escape. Arthur is accused of the crime, it being well known that he is in need of money. A day later Girda, lost in the city, is run over by a motor car, and Iris, taking pity on the waif, has her removed to her home. Girda still has in her possession the note Gaspard sent to his accomplice, and this arouses the suspicion of Iris. That night at the theatre she receives an invitation from Gaspard, who has witnessed the performance, and Iris, seeing that his writing is identical with that on the note taken from Girda, decides to attend the fete at Gaspard's home. Later she drugs the man in order that she may search his house for further evidence against him. Finding the letter from Jacobs in which the robbery was first suggested, she telephones for the police. Gaspard, however, recovers from the effects of the drug before the police arrive and makes his escape by way of a secret passage leading to a sewer. He wrecks his home with explosives, but a spring lock on the sewer gate entraps him. As Iris has taken his keys, he is forced to remain in the vicinity of the explosion and meets a terrible doom. Later Arthur's mother recognizes the dead man as her assailant, and the young man's innocence is established. The mother keeps Arthur in ignorance of his dead father's guilt, and later the young man finds happiness with Iris as his bride.
