Manhattan Madness

Summary

Steve O’Dare, an expatriate of the Nevada plains returning to the gilded cage of New York’s high society, finds the ‘Great White Way’ an anaemic substitute for the rugged vitality of the frontier. Ensconced within the mahogany-lined vacuum of the University Club, O’Dare wagers five thousand dollars that Manhattan is incapable of eliciting a genuine visceral thrill. This hubris precipitates a descent into a meticulously choreographed phantasmagoria when he encounters the enigmatic Count Marinoff and a ward whose desperate, silent supplications suggest a Gothic peril lurking beneath the city’s veneer. What follows is a labyrinthine escapade involving trap doors, bound-and-gagged confrontations, and a rooftop skirmish that blurs the boundary between existential threat and theatrical artifice. When the veil of this elaborate prank is lifted to reveal a banquet of actors, O’Dare orchestrates a final, triumphant subversion by summoning his own Nevada cowboys to reclaim the narrative, transforming a simulated rescue into a genuine romantic conquest that leaves the urbanites reeling in the wake of his Western spontaneity.

Synopsis

Steve O'Dare, a rich young man who has lived on his Nevada ranch for some years, returns to New York for a visit. He goes to the University Club, of which he is a member, for a week of New York gaiety with his club companions, but fails to get thrills out of the pleasures of the Great White Way. While lunching at a country club, he tells the boys that there isn't a thrill in Manhattan. And then, through an open doorway he sees at a table in the garden outside a middle-aged couple of distinguished appearance--and a beautiful girl. Upon inquiring of his companions who the people are, he learns that they are the Count and Countess Marinoff and their ward. One of his pals offers to bet him $5,000 that if he will stay in New York a week he will get the thrill of his life. Steve takes the bet. Remembering that he has sold stock to Count Marinoff he wonders whether it might not be possible for him to meet the ward. The problem is solved when the Count calls Steve up and asks him to come to his home. Steve goes and meets the ward, who mystifies Steve by making mysterious signs to him. The Count informs Steve that the girl is crazy. The girl's maid passes Steve a note that says the girl is in great peril and wants him to help her. The Count being called away, the maid directs Steve to go up to the second floor. Ascending the stairs he drops through a trap door on the landing and is bound and gagged by the Count's butler, but the maid releases him, and he telephones to the boys at the club and asks some of them to come out to the Count's house. The boys come, and a battle follows between the Count and his servants on one side, Steve and the clubmen on the other. Steve battles up through the house to the roof with one of the Count's henchmen, who has carried the ward off in his arms early in the conflict. After finally knocking the villain cold Steve searches for the girl but cannot find her. All the men who have been fighting, both his friends and the Count have mysteriously disappeared. As he is at his wits end he sees the face of the butler peeping through a sliding panel in the wall. The panel quickly closes and Steve kicks his way through it and finds himself in a banquet hall where the whole company of his friends and supposed foes are dining together, the persecuted ward beaming at him from the end of the table. The friend with whom Steve made the bet now explains that he has been given the promised thrill, the members of the party, except the clubmen, being members of the theatrical profession, especially engaged for the doings. Just then there arrives four of Steve's cowboys, for whom he telephoned at the same time that he telephoned the club. With their aid Steve quickly turns the tables on the jokers. While cowboys cover the party with their guns Steve announces that he, like Lochinvar, came out of the West, grabs the girl, and rides away with her. She is a not-unwilling captive, and as hour later the weary party still held under the guns get a wireless from Steve that he is quite willing to pay his bet; he has had the thrill of his life, for he is married and sailing away on his wedding tour.