Volume II: Filmography Volume II: Filmography
December 28, 1914 (Monday)
Length: 2 reels (Reels 11 and 12)
Scenario: Lloyd F. Lonergan, from a story by Daniel Carson Goodman
Note: Prints of 60 scenes from this episode were registered by the Copyright Office on December 29, 1914.
SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, December 19, 1914:
"The flames were sketching on the wall with their flickering shadows as Mrs. McWinter sat with her little daughter sewing. Near the reading lamp in back of her McWinter sat. As his wife turned, and spoke to him, he put down his paper with a surly growl and answered her curtly, and the look that came over her face was distressed and uncomprehending. Presently the little daughter kissed her father and mother goodnight and went to bed.
"It was the next evening that McWinter's jealousy finally got the better of him, and he determined to do something about the situation with which he found himself confronted. He came home early, kissed his pretty wife and hugged his daughter, then left them and went upstairs to wash. By the time he was down again, their boarder had come home. This boarder was a young man, who was employed in McWinter's chemical works, and it was at Mrs. McWinter's suggestion that he had been allowed to come into their house as a paying guest. This first aroused the suspicions of the head of the house. As Mrs. McWinter said, when it was too late, 'Oh, if I had only told him that Jim was my brother. We kept it secret, though, because we wanted Jim to get along on his own merits, and not on my husband's pull.'
"Meanwhile, upstairs, McWinter was washing his hands as the new boarder came up the steps and into the house. Before going upstairs he went into the parlor, and when the husband and father came down from his ablutions he found the family boarder leaning over the table, looking at some pictures with an arm round wife and daughter. That was too much. McWinter resolved to do something, and began planning.
"Going to a hut near his factory, McWinter is soon busily engaged in fixing the catch so that it locks the door from outside and thus keeps anyone who is inside when the door closes, a prisoner until help comes. Over the door McWinter now builds a small shelf which is held in place by hinges. From the bottom of it a small piece of wood projects. This operates in such a way that when the door is pushed in the shelf is tilted back towards the wall, thus holding in place whatever may happen to be on it. However, when the door after being opened, swings to again, and, in swinging back collides with the piece of wood which projects from the bottom of the shelf, the shelf itself, in turn, is tilted downwards and dumps on the stone floor whatever happens to have been on it. If whatever happens to have been on it were a glass bottle, McWinter concludes that the bottle would smash to bits.
"With this idea in his mind he goes back to his chemical works and from the laboratory, when the backs of the two chemists are turned, he takes a bottle from the white label of which in large red letters the one word 'POISON' stares. We see him now carefully conceal this in the pocket of his corduroy shooting jacket, and hurry home. As he goes up the steps of his house he calls his pet hunting dog from the kennel and goes indoors for his gun. 'I hate going hunting alone' McWinter says to his wife. 'Do you suppose Jim would care to go with me?'
"'Why not ask him?' Mrs. McWinter inquires. 'He's upstairs getting ready to go out.' McWinter did. Jim was willing, but for some unaccountable reason Mrs. McWinter shivered with apprehension as she watched them go down the steps and cross the fields together. Why it was she could not say then, but afterwards she declared she knew that one of those two, she would never see return alive. And that proved to be the case.
"Meanwhile McWinter and Jim were crossing the field together in earnest conversation concerning the prospects of good hunting. 'By the way, I think I left an old hunting bag of mine in that hut yonder,' McWinter explains as he hurries ahead and going into the hut adjusts the bottle of poison on top of the little shelf, propping the door open with a stick of firewood. His dog had followed him and now is crouched down beside McWinter who is waiting for Jim's arrival. His intention is to get Jim in the hut, kick the piece of wood out of the way and get outside himself, knowing well that the bottle on the shelf above would crash to the floor and release inside the hut a volume of deadly fumes. Suddenly Jim appeared.
"With a yelp the dog crouching beside McWinter jumped to meet the newcomer, and struck down the stick of wood as he leapt through the door, which closed with a bang, just escaping the hind heels of the hurrying animal. When Jim opened the door after a leisurely interval, for naturally it never occurred to him what was going on inside or that the door was even locked by its accidental closing, McWinter lay dead. A half hour later Jim was arrested - charged with the commission of a diabolical crime. The news spread. A mob gathered.
"Meanwhile, Mrs. McWinter had called on the far-famed Hassam Ali, mystic detective to investigate the case and save her brother from the electric chair. And to Zudora, his niece, Hassam Ali confided the case. At once she calls on John Storm, her young lawyer sweetheart, for aid in solving the mystery, for each success brings their wedding day nearer.
"With Storm's help she does so. After examining the shelf and finding broken glass on the floor, she makes a few inquiries, and just as she has solved the problem, she learns that a mob is lynching Jim. Hastening over road and field she persuades them to listen, convinces them of the truth, and the man is freed."
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Copyright © 1995 Q. David Bowers. All Rights Reserved.