The story
“The Mystery of the Dutch Cheese Maker, the third episode of Zudora, Dr. Daniel Carson Goodman’s thrilling serial photoplay, is one which introduces on the screen a rarely [sic] exciting panorama of constantly changing events. Again the hand of the mystic detective, Hassam Ali, is turned against John Storm, sweetheart of his niece, Zudora, who, unknown to herself, on her eighteenth birthday, becomes heir to the great Zudora mine. The $20,000,000 value represented by this mine Hassam Ali wants for himself. If he can only get rid of Zudora he can accomplish this end, for he is the next heir at law to his clever and pretty ward. Zudora has twice pitted her skill as a mystic against her uncle’s and, in doing so, twice rescued her lover from peril. In the present episode her daring and resourcefulness again is put to a supreme test.
“The picture begins by showing John Storm in the store of the Dutch cheese maker, who has asked the young lawyer to draw up his will for him. After their conversation is completed, the old man gives his counselor a piece of cheese as a present, and Storm goes out the door with it tucked carelessly under his arm, and, as luck would have it, going down the steps he drops it. Quick with suspicion and on the alert for any chance, Hassam Ali, who has come up behind him, stoops and picks up the cheese.
“A minute later the mystic is approached by a miserably clothed, old, long bearded tramp, who asks his aid in marketing some diamonds. Hassam Ali learns from this old man that he manufactures diamonds that are seemingly as wonderful as nature’s own. Hassam Ali gives the old man his card, and learns that his plant is in the cellar of this very building and directly under the shop of the Dutch cheese maker. They go down and examine it, and the inventor, flinging carbon in a blast furnace, causes an explosion that produces a diamond. This diamond Hassam Ali takes to a jeweler and, learning that it is genuine, becomes greatly excited.
“When he returns to the inventor’s, however, he learns that the old man is being systematically robbed, and that his suspicions have centered on the mystic as the only man who has been in the underground quarters. The two men clinch but Hassam Ali subdues his frailer opponent and then convinces him that he has taken nothing, and that they must try to apprehend the thief. They set a trap in the hope of doing this, and Hassam Ali goes home, where he opens his package dropped by Storm, and to his intense astonishment and glee discovers that the cheese is full of diamonds. Here, indeed, is a case where he can surely convict Zudora’s manly young sweetheart, and get rid of him once and for all.
“When his niece says that she is going to make this mystery the third of her twenty cases, her uncle laughs to himself. He has promised her that if she solves twenty cases for him, he will give his permission to her marriage with Storm, but he feels confident that this time she is going to fail. Making careful inquiries of all concerned from the little daughter of the Dutch cheese maker, who is now in prison, to Storm himself, Zudora finally goes down the rickety stairs into the dusty cellar occupied by the diamond inventor. Thinking that at last the thief who has robbed him so systematically of his gems is about to fall into his clutches, the old man rushes at her in a fury and she is only saved by the arrival of Hassam Ali. While the mystic does not raise his hand to help her, the old man stops at the sight of him, and Zudora gets a chance to explain. Just by chance, when they free her, she escapes putting her foot in a great mantrap set on the floor, but, as she leans back against the wall, gasping faintly, the solution of the whole mystery suddenly occurs to her.
“She has heard, between the walls, the scamper of hurrying feet, and she immediately goes and looks into one of the great cheese vats. There she finds two mice. Their noses are sticky with cheese, and one glance at them convinces Zudora. Running back to the cupboard where the diamonds are kept, she pushes her arm in and smiling waits her chance. Presently she hears the mice enter. Soon her hand closes round one of them, and she brings the little pet out and holds him up with a diamond firmly stuck to the cheese on the end of his nose. This explains how the diamonds got into the cheese, and the cheese maker, when he is released from jail promises, in future, to restrict the activities of his pets. Once more John Storm is cleared by the wit of his sweetheart, and once more the evil designs of Hassam Ali are frustrated.”
Summary from Reel Life · 28 November 1914
