The Fighting Lover

A cocksure plutocrat, Andrew Forsdale, wagers a king’s ransom—ten grand in 1920s coin—that his feckless pal Ned Randolph will succumb to Cupid’s arrow inside a single lunar cycle. Mutual crony Vic Ragner holds the purse and the gavel while three radiant applicants—Helen Leigh, Anna Hughes, Julia Gunther—arrive via newspaper summons like rare butterflies pinned to a board. Wagers, however, have a habit of boomeranging: Andrew, the supposed puppet-master, plummets head-first into love with Helen, the most incandescent of the trio. Off to Auntie’s country manor they motor for a velvet-weekend of moonlight confessions, only to have the soirée eclipsed by a blood-chilling theft: Vic’s storied diamond vanishes, its custodian left stone-cold dead. Suspicion ricochets among the house-guests until Julia’s serpentine duplicity uncoils—she is the thieves’ accomplice, greed masquerading as grace. In the aftermath, Helen and Andrew fuse hearts, Ned claims Anna but forfeits the wager, and justice arrives wearing the bruised smile of irony.