The Tempting of Justice

Summary

A judge’s dissolute heir, Andre Delvaux, dances on the lip of ruin, his nights a blur of champagne and roulette, his mornings mortgaged to the hilt. A single sheet of vellum—inked with the cold demand for twenty thousand dollars—shatters the mirage of endless credit. Salvation glimmers in the form of Irene, platinum-heiress to a banking empire; he plots courtship as calculated liquidation, yet one gaze across the ballroom’s chiaroscuro and the mercenary scheme liquefies into unfeigned thunderstruck rapture. To purify that love he jettisons Clarice, a panther-eyed adventuress who has already devoured half his inheritance in sable and solitaire. Spurned, she dips her pen in venom, posting the father-judge an exposé that frames the engagement as mere fiduciary larceny. The ancestral gavel falls: letters are revoked, dowries withdrawn, and the prodigal is banished to the African frontier with nothing but a vow carved into his own flesh—return a man or not at all. While he wrests ivory, honor, and malaria-scarred dignity from the red clay, Clarice’s predatory cunning births a doppelgänger: her dissolute half-brother Santell, whose cheekbones echo Andre’s with uncanny symmetry. Armed with forged stationary and a borrowed cravat, Santell infiltrates Irene’s marble mansion, filigrees her safe, and leaves a monogrammed handkerchief as a bread-crumb for the police. The judge—trembling between paternal instinct and juridical oath—signs the warrant that may cage his only blood. Gallows-shadows converge until an ocean-liner steamer trunk disgorges a telegram: Andre, sun-bronzed and contract-rich, proclaiming both solvency and fidelity. The courtroom’s gasp is almost orchestral; the mask ripped from Santell reveals the cadaverous underside of greed; the gavel, once poised to shatter a lineage, instead knights a father for choosing justice over genome.

Synopsis

Andre Delvaux, the son of a judge, has been wasting his time and money in riotous living. He is brought to his senses by the receipt of a letter from one of his creditors demanding an immediate settlement on pain of exposure. To secure the necessary $20,000 is impossible. A way opens when he is given the opportunity to meet the daughter of a rich banker. He goes to meet her with the intention of marrying her to recoup his losses. However, when he does meet her he really falls in love with her and she with him. He resolves to do what is right and throws over Clarice, an adventuress with whom he has been living and on whom he has spent most of his money. Fearing to lose her way of living she writes to the father of Andre and tells him that his son owes a large sum of money and that his intention of marrying the daughter of the banker is to square himself with the money lender. Andre's father writes to the banker and calls the engagement off. He then takes the matter up with his son and sends him away. Andre goes to Africa swearing that he will make a man of himself and return to prove to Irene that he is faithful. When he is gone, Clarice, the adventuress, gets her brother, who resembles Andre, to impersonate him. Santell writes to Irene in Andre's name and gets from her a key to the house, which he proceeds to rob. Irene discovers Santell as he is leaving, but in her excitement takes him for Andre. A letter dropped by Santell in his flight gives the police the clue to the robber. Thinking it is Andre the father is greatly tempted to give up the case. He, however, is true to his oath of office and orders the arrest of his son. Just as the trial is about to proceed and the father thinks he will have to sentence his son to prison a letter is received from Andre in Africa telling of his successful struggle to make a name for himself. The impersonator is shown up in his true light, and the father receives the congratulations of the court on his firm stand.