The Ghost Breaker

Summary

A parchment flutters from a jewel-casket like a dying moth, and the Aragon dynasty’s last secret—an enameled locket inked with a subterranean map—slips from gilded memory into the clammy palms of treachery. Princess Maria Theresa, regal yet restless, traces the vanished heirloom across two continents: from the echoing vaults of a Castilian castle whose corridors reek of wet stone and staged phantoms, to Manhattan’s gas-lit canyons where Spanish gold becomes another curio in a Fifth-Avenue vitrine. Jealous maids trade kisses for daggers; an American art-collector barters heritage for wallpaper; a southern blood-feud splatters a judge’s white suit on a courthouse step. Warren Jarvis—reckless heir to that feud—hauls his grief northward, kills his father’s slayer, and stuffs his own trembling frame into a princess’s steamer trunk, crossing the Atlantic as contraband. In the moon-swathed courtyard of the haunted castle, armor-clad specters prove nothing more than the Duke D’Alva’s hired thugs, yet their clanking masquerade still reeks of gravesoil. Through trapdoors, parapets, and a moat that swallows screams, locket, map, and hearts change hands until the treasure is not bullion but the fused pulse of an outlaw and a princess who decide that love itself is the only fortune left to unearth.

Synopsis

The treasure of the Aragon family has never been found or any trace of it, until one day, while Princess Maria Theresa is looking over her jewels, she drops the casket and a secret compartment flies open, disclosing an old parchment which tells of a locket that contains the diagram describing the location. The Princess goes for the locket and finds it has been stolen. Carmencita, her maid, has stolen it and, being jealous of her rival, Juanita, for Jose's affections, has sold it to Gaines, an American art collector. Juanita, during a fit of jealousy, stabs Carmencita, and Carmencita, on her death bed, tells the Princess and her brother she sold the locket. The Duke D'Alva overhears the conversation and starts in search of it, as does the Princess and her brother. In a southern town a feud has existed between the Jarvis and Markam families, and Markam kills Judge Jarvis. Warren Jarvis, his son, follows Markam to New York. Markam goes along the street and sees the locket brought from Spain by Gaines, the collector, and buys it. The Princess enters and finds the locket has been sold. She starts to find Markam. The Duke enters the store and asks about the locket, and he also starts to find Markam. The Princess gets the locket from Markam, who is at the same hotel that she is staying at. Jarvis, in search of Markam, finds him and kills him. While trying to escape he enters the Princess' room and tells her the story. Her trunk is nearly packed to go on the boat for her return to Spain. She hides Jarvis in trunk and he is taken on board the boat. In the meantime, Jarvis has telephoned to Rusty, his colored servant, to procure tickets. Two detectives enter and search for Jarvis, but fail to find him. He goes to Spain to help the Princess recover her treasure. Before the Princess goes to America, her father, who enters the castle which is supposed to be haunted, but in reality the ghosts are only the tools of the Duke dressed in armor and as ghosts, is killed by the Duke's men who also capture her brother and hold him prisoner. Jarvis, upon his arrival in Spain, starts with Rusty, his servant, to explore the castle. While at the inn near the old castle, the Duke steals the locket from the Princess' bag and tells Robledo, his tool, to keep Jarvis away from the castle. The Princess learns that the locket has been stolen and tells Jarvis. Jarvis starts to go out, when Robledo appears with drawn gun. He and Jarvis both fire. Jarvis seriously wounds Robledo who, on his death bed, tells the Princess about the castle and also about her brother. The brother, who has escaped by diving into the same place where the Duke's tools killed the Princess' father, swims the moat and escapes on the horse Jarvis rode to the castle. He notifies the police, who come to the castle. They are about to seize the Duke when he jumps down the trap and is killed. Jarvis and the Princess then each discover a mutual desire to possess the other and the story ends with the pair pledging their troth.