Summary
In the chiaroscuro gloom of a mansion weighed down by grief, Jane Hamlin—heir to both fortune and a paternal enigma—unearths a parchment that hisses with menace: a safe must be bled into the brine, a third button shunned, a mechanism pregnant with noxious vapor. She obeys, withdrawing a brass-and-steel chimera of annihilation. Enter Clayton Boyd, her betrothed, his visage a marble façade with hairline fractures of venality. Their whispers braid with the ticking of distant bombs while, across the city’s bowels, a cell of nihilists covets the device. Sverdrup, a hyena in human garb, slinks through moonlight, jimmies the casement, and is ambushed; yet Boyd, seduced by lucre, barters conscience for coin and lets the wolf slip away. Masquerading subsequently as the spectral patriarch—shrouded in linen, face blanched with phosphor—Boyd attempts to coax the engine of apocalypse from Jane’s tremulous grasp. Beatrice Fairfax, society’s arch-sleuth, arrives with cub-reporter Jimmy in tow, transforming the manse into a theatre of competing apparitions. Doppelgänger ghosts hover, revolvers glint, trapdoors yawn. In the final tableau the anarchist cadre reclaims the infernal toy, unaware that Jimmy has already thumbed the lethal tertiary switch—an invisible death now drifts seaward with the tide.
Synopsis
Jane Hamlin's father, a wealthy inventor, has just died and the young woman is going over his private papers. She finds a note addressed to her, which reads: "Open the safe and drop its contents into the ocean. Do not touch the third button. The machine is loaded with poison gas." She opens the safe and draws forth an infernal machine. As she does so, her fiancé, Clayton Boyd, enters. He has a handsome face, but it displays weakness of character. They sit conversing in the dark room far into the night. The scene changes and shows the interior of a room occupied by a gang of anarchists. They had tried to secure Hamlin's invention before his death and now plot to steal it. One of their number, Sverdrup, is delighted to commit crime. As Jane and her fiancé are talking in the dark room, they see Sverdrup at the window. As he jimmies it and enters, they hide behind a couch. Covering the anarchist with a revolver, Boyd compels him to throw up his hands. Jane switches on the lights and leaves the room to phone the police. When she is gone, the anarchist offers Boyd $1,000 to free him and help him get the "only perfect infernal machine." He accepts, allows the anarchist to escape and then throws himself on the floor. When Jane and the police arrive he feigns unconsciousness and as he recovers, claims the burglar beat him over the head. The police doubt his story and leave in disgust. Jane is greatly troubled and writes to Beatrice Fairfax for advice. Meantime, Boyd and the anarchist lay the plot to secure the infernal machine. Boyd makes up as the ghost of Jane's father. That night he gains entrance to the Hamlin house, and as the ghost, tells Jane to give his secret to the man she loves. Jane falls in a faint. Beatrice and Jimmy visit her the following day. After Jane has told her story, Beatrice agrees to spend the night with her. Jimmy has been shadowing Boyd and late that night follows him and the anarchist to the Hamlin house. He sees them go to the roof through an adjoining vacant house, sees Boyd disguise himself as Hamlin, wind a sheet about himself, and descend through the trap door to the Hamlin house. Sverdrup has been left on guard and Jimmy overpowers him. Then, winding a sheet about himself, Jimmy descends, too. Boyd appears before Jane and frightens her almost to death. As he is talking to her, he hears a noise behind him. He turns to confront another ghost, and almost collapses himself from fright. Jimmy drops his sheet and covers Boyd with a revolver. But Sverdrup has recovered and enters behind Jimmy. He is about to deal him a blow over the head when Beatrice, emerging from the room adjoining that of Jane, fires from the doorway and drops the anarchist. Jimmy then tears the sheet from Boyd and strips from his lips his false moustache, revealing him in his true character. Two policemen summoned by Jimmy take away the plotters and Jane takes Jimmy and Beatrice to the library to show them the infernal machine. As they are examining it, other members of the gang surprise them, compel them to surrender the infernal machine, and escape. As Beatrice scolds Jimmy for his carelessness he explains: "Don't worry. I pressed the third button."
