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Grant, Police Reporter
(1916-1917) United States of America
B&W : Serial / 29 chapters / 29 reels
Directed by George Larkin and Robert Ellis
Cast: George Larkin [Tom Grant], Ollie Kirkby (Ollie Kirby) [Mamie the Rose (chapter 1), Miss Carter (chapter 2), Myrtle, the stenographer (chapter 3), Helen, also known as The Mouse (chapter 4), Eileen Brophy (chapter 5), Tia (chapter 6), The Woman in Black (chapter 7), Babette (chapter 8), Maura (chapter 9), Nell (chapter 10), Louise Froisart (chapter 11), Nina (chapter 12), Nell, Kelly’s stenographer (chapter 13), Genevieve Rolston (chapter 14), Marjorie Manlove (chapter 15), Mrs. Russelle (chapter 16), Myrta Brandon (chapter 17), Natalie, the maid (chapter 18), Inez Monk (chapter 19), Lois Trent (chapter 20), Nurse Marguerita Morales (chapters 21-22), Martha Barrington (chapter 23), Doris Saltwell (chapter 24), May Du Reel (chapter 26), Claire Convers (chapter 27), Marie Le Blanc (chapter 28), Mary Neal (chapter 29)], Robert Ellis [Baron Litchfield (chapter 1), John Goss (chapter 3), Paper-Collar Joe (chapter 4), Chitsworth, a gambler (chapter 5), Joe the Wolf (chapter 6), Professor Atwood (chapter 7), Luigi Verra (chapter 9), Big Val Marron (chapter 10), Count de Graff (chapter 11), Mr. Black (chapter 12), Thompson, Kelly’s secretary (chapter 13), Royce Rolston, Genevieve’s father (chapter 14), Dimitri (chapter 15), Mordkin (chapter 16), Jack Mulhall (chapter 17), Daddy Greelick (chapter 18), Chris Monk (chapter 19), The Spider (chapters 20-25 and 29), Paul Darsey (chapter 26), Phil Kelsey (chapter 27)], William McKee (William McKey) [City Editor Mansfield, and Porcupine Peterson (chapter 4), Henri Theophile (chapter 8), Jamison, the butler (chapter 14)], Arthur Albertson [Detective Cadogan, and Tony (chapter 6)], G. Chira (Gregori Chmara) [Police Commissioner Brophy], Bettie Dial [Miss Harding, the missing heiress (chapter 2)], Mary Taylor-Ross (Mary Ross) [Rita Morrell (chapter 5), Mrs. Montt (chapter 8), the landlady (chapter 9), Mrs. Blanchard (chapter 21), Jenny Dobbs (chapter 27), ‘Slipper’ Margaret (chapter 29)], Harry Gordon [Inspector Rathbone (chapter 7), Detective Galloway (chapter 8), the submarine commander (chapter 12), Boss Kelly (chapter 13), Doctor Standish (chapter 14), Orloff (chapter 15), Major Russelle (chapter 16), Police Lieutenant Brandon (chapter 17), Chief Detective Galloway (chapter 18), Jimson (chapter 19), Jardyce, the butler (chapter 20), ‘Doctor’ Baldwin (chapter 21), George Brule (chapter 22), Julius Elwell (chapter 24), Robert Du Reel (chapter 26), ‘Two Spot’ Thomey (chapter 27), Count Leone (chapter 28), The Spider’s accomplice (chapter 29)], T. Justin Dow [Monsieur Darnac (chapter 8)], Herbert Tracy (Bert Tracy) [Jean Murat (chapter 9), Benny the Rat (chapter 10), Stacey (chapter 13)], Cyril Courtney [James Manlove, Marjorie’s father (chapter 15), City Editor Carter (chapter 16), Benny (chapter 17), Grandon Rice (chapter 18), Maddox (chapter 19), Major Chenilworth (chapter 20), Mr. Blanchard (chapter 21), Thaddeus Barrington (chapter 23), Marsden Saltwell (chapter 24), Colonel Smithton (chapter 28)], M. Cohen [Carl Letson (chapter 17)], A.B. Foreman [Harry Brule, George’s son (chapter 22)], Mrs. Welsh [Ethel Smithton (chapter 28)], Marjorie Cohan
Kalem Company, Incorporated, production; distributed by The General Film Company, Incorporated. / Scenario by Robert Welles Ritchie, from screen stories by Robert Welles Ritchie. / 29 chapters (one reel each): [1] “The Code Letter,” released 20 October 1916; [2] “The Missing Heiress,” released 27 October 1916; [3] “The Pencil Clue,” released 4 November 1916; [4] “The Man from Yukon,” released 10 November 1916; [5] “The Rogue’s Pawn,” released 17 November 1916; [6] “The House of Three Deuces,” released 24 November 1916; [7] “The Wizard’s Plot,” released 1 December 1916; [8] “The Trunk Mystery,” released 8 December 1916; [9] “The Menace,” released 15 December 1916; [10] “The Tiger’s Claw,” released 22 December 1916; [11] “A Mission of State,” released 29 December 1916; [12] “The House of Secrets,” released 5 January 1917; [13] “The Trail of Graft,” released 12 January 1917; [14] “The Black Circle,” released 19 January 1917; [15] “The Violet Ray,” released 26 January 1917; [16] “The Net of Intrigue,” released 17 February 1917; [17] “The Trap,” released 9 February 1917; [18] “Winged Diamonds,” released 3 March 1917; [19] “The Screened Vault,” released 23 February 1917; [20] “The Mirror of Fear,” released 10 March 1917; [21] “The Veiled Thunderbolt,” released 12 May 1917; [22] “In the Web of the Spider,” released 24 March 1917; [23] “The Missing Financier,” released 7 April 1917; [24] “The Secret of the Borgias,” released 19 April 1917; [25] “The Vanishing Bishop”; [26] “Mystery of Room 422,” released 13 October 1917; [27] “A Deal in Bonds,” released 20 October 1917; [28] “The Man with the Limp,” released 27 October 1917; [29] “Sign of the Scarf,” released 3 November 1917. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / The production was shot in Jacksonville, Florida. Each chapter was a self-contained story.
Drama: Crime.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? (Chapter 1) At a fashionable hotel Grant, police reporter of The Chronicle, sees a face that seems strangely familiar. To his memory there comes a flash of a certain day in the Bertillon room at Headquarters and he recognizes the man as Litchfield, a clever “gentleman crook.” His suspicions aroused, he follows Litchfield to the writing room and there sees him scribble some figures from a letter he has just received. When Litchfield departs Grant takes some scraps from the waste basket and piecing them together finds it a code message. By clever deduction he finds the message to read, “Meet me at 1350 Seventh Avenue at three o’clock, Mame.” Grant recognizes Mamie as the notorious “Mamie the Rose” and further investigation at the address given shows that the crooks are planning their getaway with their loot for many months already packed. When Litchfield arrives at three o’clock, Grant and Detective Cadogan are close behind. Grant goes upstairs to Mamie’s apartment while Cadogan remains to guard the front door with instructions to follow in fifteen minutes if Grant does not return. From the hall window Grant crawls along the narrow ledge of the building until he reaches the window of Mamie’s apartment and then jumps in, surprising the crooks. In the scuffle that follows he is overpowered, and Litchfield and Mamie make their escape to the roof. Grant follows and reaches the roof in time to see Litchfield escaping on a planking across a twelve-foot areaway to another roof, after which he pulls the plank over. Grant takes the only remaining chance and goes hand over hand across a slender pipe to the other roof. Litchfield is already halfway down the fire escape, however, and seems certain of escaping when Grant decides to adopt the perilous expedient of sliding down the rope of a painter’s scaffold. He is halfway down and still many stories above the pavement when Mamie the Rose in a fiendish plan to aid her accomplice, cuts the rope. Grant makes a breathtaking swing through the air but manages to retain his grasp on the rope. The end of his swing carries him to the fire escape and he lands plump on top of Litchfield, who is soon pummeled into submission. Meanwhile Cadogan has gone upstairs and from the apartment sped to the roof where he captures Mamie. / (Chapter 2) The disappearance of the wealthy Miss Harding opens a problem for Tommy Grant, police reporter of The Chronicle. The only clue is a letter demanding ransom, but by clever detective work Grant succeeds in placing the blame for the crime on the shoulders of Miss Carter, the Harding private secretary. But her accomplice, the butler, spirits the kidnapped girl away and boards a tug headed down the bay to catch the liner Trieste. Grant arrives at the docks too late, but when wireless inquiries inform him that the butler and girl have boarded the Trieste off Sandy Hook, he speeds to the aeroplane sheds and sets out in pursuit of the liner. A thrilling chase by air, with the camera following in another aeroplane brings us to the climax when Grant by a leap through the air reaches the ship’s ladder. / (Chapter 3) Lawyer White, of the firm of White and Goss, is the victim of a fiendish plan, dying as the result of a pencil so powerfully poisoned that when be moistened it in the course of his writing the effect was instantaneous. The mystery of his death is a baffling one, but Tommy Grant, with the aid of Myrtle, the stenographer in Lawyer Goss’ office, succeeds in solving it and placing the blame on the shoulders of Goss. The latter suspects Myrtle and attacks her just as Grant and Detective Cadogan arrive to arrest him. Goss gains the upper hand and succeeds in escaping down the stairs, locking the door of his office on his pursuers. Grant rushes to the window just in time to see Goss leaping into the auto that Cadogan and Grant had arrived in. Without hesitating Grant leaps to the window ledge and through the air landing in the auto as it whizzes by. There is a struggle between the two in the car. Grant finally emerging victorious. / (Chapter 4) Porcupine Peterson, of Dawson, Alaska, is in New York with a surplus of green-backs and anxious to “do the town.” He falls into the clutches of Helen, “The Mouse,” and her wire-tapping gang and refuses to heed the warnings of Tommy Grant, who had previously earned his friendship. Tommy enlists the aid of his friend Detective Cadogan, and they set about the capture of the wire-tappers. Their plans are successful, but in the closing scenes it becomes necessary for Grant to slide down a painter's rope from a seventh story window to the ground in order to intercept the fleeing conspirators. / (Chapter 5) Eileen Brophy is a victim of the dance craze and Chitsworth, a gambler, seeing her at Surry’s, fosters an acquaintance in order to make her his innocent tool. Tommy Grant, of The Chronicle, is busy on a story that the gambling houses are open again, but seeks to learn whether it is with the knowledge of the police before publishing his facts. His visit to Chitsworth’s alarms that gambler and he determines to sell out to Hawley, a Chicago plunger seeking to start operations in New York. As a guarantee of his intimacy with the police Chitsworth says, “Why even the commissioner’s daughter is a good friend of mine: I’ll introduce you to her here to-morrow.” With Rita Morell, an adventuress, posing as his sister, Chitsworth finds it an easy matter to induce the innocent Eileen to go to his house “for a rare-bit” after the dance at Surry’s. Grant follows the party, but is barred from entering by the guardian at Chitsworth’s door. Running around to the rear of the house he climbs a drainpipe until he is high enough to see through the windows of Chitsworth’s establishment. He is horrified to see Eileen, who has learned the character of the place, engaged in a struggle with Rita Morell, who is seeking to prevent her outcry and escape. A chafing dish is overturned in the struggle and the room is speedily a whirl of flames. Eileen falls unconscious and Grant sees that in the rush of the gamblers to escape she has been left to the mercy of the flames. He takes a chance and starts to climb hand over hand on the telephone wires stretched between the two buildings. Midway, his weight causes the wires to snap and he is catapulted into the flaming room. He succeeds in escaping to the roof with Eileen and there finds a rope by which he lets her down to the ground. Flames from the windows part the rope, however, and when he seeks to effect his own escape there is no alternative but a leap to the fire net. / (Chapter 6) Mysterious murders are frequent occurrences at 222 Kemig Street, known in police records as “The House of Three Deuces.” Tommy Grant, of The Chronicle, happens upon the scene just following one crime that seems to baffle solution. The detectives are at a standstill, but Grant, by the exercise of clever deductions, succeeds in trailing the guilty man to the tenement room where he has imprisoned Tia, the sweetheart of the murdered man. Grant hears a struggle in the room and attempts to force an entrance by the door. That falling, he goes out on the fire escape and is about to leap into the room when Joe “The Wolf” springs upon him and there is a tense struggle on the fire escape many feet above the sidewalk. Suddenly the rickety landing collapses. Grant succeeds in hooking his legs into the iron ladder and hangs suspended in the air while Joe is hurled to the ground. / (Chapter 7) “Watch Marvelo; he is the most dangerous man in New York,” says a note left at the Chronicle office for Tommy Grant by a mysterious woman in black. Grant investigates and learns that Marvelo is the name given the mechanical chess player at Sledin’s Museum. He visits the museum and seeking to force his man to uncover his hand, leaves a note on the table when he is unobserved. The note reads, “Be on your guard; you are watched.” The ruse is successful, and Grant, following Prof. John Atwood, the man inside the dummy, when he seeks to make his escape, soon finds himself in the midst of a puzzling case. Atwood is an anarchist, with a fiendish plan to stop the war by blowing up a string of ammunition cars along the New York waterfront. With Secret Service operatives Grant succeeds in frustrating the plan in the nick of time. A motorboat pursuit results in the capture of Atwood and his accomplices. / (Chapter 8) Cleaning out the attic of her boarding house Mrs. Montt comes upon an old trunk which discloses a skull to her startled gaze. Grant arrives on the scene for the investigation with Chief of Detectives Cadogan. They learn that Mrs. Montt purchased the house five years previous from Henri Theophile. The trunk was in the attic at that time but she had never examined it until this day. Investigating after Galloway’s departure. Grant finds in the lining of the trunk a girl’s photograph inscribed on the back: “To my dear Babette. Alphonse Darnac.” Investigation in the filing room of the newspaper later brings to light a clipping telling of the disappearance of a boarder from the boarding house many years before and a hint that he had eloped with the daughter of the proprietor. Grant evolves a daring scheme to uncover the five-year-old mystery. He inserts a personal reading, “Babette, Your sweetheart, whom you thought dead, has returned. Meet him at the Abbey Inn Wednesday noon. Alphonse Darnac.” Babette, now a happy wife and mother, and Henri Theophile, a derelict, see the personal. Their mystification impels both to journey to the Abbey Inn, where Grant and Galloway are in waiting. The meeting brings on stirring complications before the mystery is solved, while Grant is called upon to show daredevil courage in bringing Henri to justice. / (Chapter 9) Jean Murot frantically begs Grant, at the Chronicle office, to print a warning in his paper against the holding of the police parade the following day. Grant promises, and returns to his desk thinking that he has been talking to a foolish crank. A few minutes later, Murot is dead outside the Chronicle building, a victim of a bullet fired by a revolver equipped with a silencer. Grant searches in the man’s pockets for a clue to the mystery but finds only a small marble. He tells Cadogan of the man’s warning but the detective laughs at it as a pipe dream. Grant sets about the job in his own way, however, with the result that he rounds up a dangerous band of anarchists, and prevents the attempt of Maura to throw a bomb at the police parade after a struggle atop a skyscraper. / (Chapter 10) Because of jealousy over the girl Nell, Benny the Rat “squeals” to Detective Galloway on Big Val Marron, leader of East Side gamblers, and the latter’s place is raided. Val’s political influence secures his release, but Grant determines to keep an eye on him as he knows that the gambler will not be satisfied until he has secured vengeance on Benny. Val prevails on Nell by threats to lure Benny to an apartment for a supposed birthday party. Grant, following Marron, sees him secure a gun, and when he enters the apartment house takes the opportunity to phone to Detective Galloway. As he finishes the call Nell and Benny enter the apartment. Grant finds the door barred and goes to the rear where a building is being erected. Climbing to a level with the first floor, he sees Marron hiding behind a curtain awaiting Benny. Grant grasps the rope of a crane and starts to swing through the air. Before he can reach the window a shot is heard. A moment later Grant crashes through the window, downing Marron. He turns to find that Nell, her conscience hurt by her part in betraying Benny, whom she really loved, has stepped between “The Rat” and Val at the moment of the shot and has given her life as a sacrifice. / (Chapter 12) Grant, police reporter on the New York Chronicle, is out on Long Island hunting quail, when his curiosity is aroused by the furtiveness of three armed men led by a woman on horseback who are conveying a covered load of something by motor truck along a deserted road he happens to cross. His curiosity leads him to investigate. The trail leads to an abandoned house. Grant sees barrel after barrel of gasoline stored in the cellar of this mysterious looking house. After the truck leaves he investigates and has a pitched battle with a wireless operator he surprises at work on the top floor. The operator presses a button thereby precipitating Grant into the basement. Breaking his bonds he again surprises the secret operator and in a struggle on the roof top Grant throws his adversary over and sits down at the wireless mechanism to unravel the mystery. He manages to pick up a message that astonishes him. He is in communication with a submarine lying on the bottom of the nearby harbor that expects to take on a supply of gasoline and oil, an act that a neutral country cannot tolerate. Meantime Nina, the girl spy in the employ of the foreign government, has summoned the submarine crew by wig wag signals. Grant manages to call the Brooklyn Navy yard before the raider’s crew arrives. Then begins a fight; in and out of windows, across slippery roof tops, the chase takes the reporter, culminating in his daring leap for the wireless frame. Uncoupling the crosspiece he swings down and out, describing a huge circle through the air until the momentum of his swing enables him to hook his legs around the limb of a tree on the opposite side of the yard. Scrambling to the ground he captures his prisoners just as the marines from the navy yard rush up. / (Chapter 13) Tom Grant, police reporter on the Chronicle, finishes a story and lays it before Mansfield, the city editor. It explains how Boss Kelly, a city politician, has grafted $350,000. Mansfield asks Grant if he has the proofs. Grant promises to have them before the day is over. Grant arrives at the building where Kelly has his suite of offices. From a window across the court he attracts the attention of Nell, Kelly’s stenographer. She raps out a message in the Morse code on her typewriter, which explains that she has the checkbook stubs and other incriminating documents that will convict Kelly, and asks that Grant meet her at Field’s restaurant at 5:30. As Grant and Nell are about to leave the restaurant, Stacey rushes in and tells him Mansfield wants to see him at the office on important business. Stacey, a linotype operator on The Chronicle, has a taxi waiting. Grant will take Nell to her home on the way. Nell gets in the taxi. Grant is sandbagged and thrown in. The crooks leap in and the taxi speeds away. Kelly follows in his auto. The taxi and auto stop in front of a shabby house and Grant and Nell are taken in and up to a room on the fifth floor rear. Grant is searched by the men while Nell is searched by the woman of the house. The crooks find nothing on either. Grant and Nell are tied up. At Kelly’s direction, the old woman builds a fire in an iron pot reposing in the fireplace of the adjoining room. The smoke pours into the next room through a flue hole high up near the ceiling. Grant throws himself and the chair he is tied to, on the floor and, with his teeth, loosens Nell’s bonds. Grant smashes the window glass to allow the smoke to escape, then wrenches off several iron bars. He and Nell crawl out on the window sill. Grant sees a fire escape balcony on their building some distance away. There is none where they stand at the window. Grant ties the end of the rope used to bind him up to the iron bars, grasps the other end and leaps down. His momentum swings him over to the fire escape. He hooks on with his feet, secures the end of the rope tightly and crawls back on the taut rope hand over hand to the window. Nell climbs on his back and Grant makes the return trip to the fire escape over the rope. They land safely. An hour later Grant reports to Mansfield. From his shoe he takes out the checkbook stubs and incriminating letters. Mansfield congratulates his plucky reporter. / (Chapter 14) Tom Grant, police reporter on the Chronicle, is on his way to his office when he sees a blind man hesitating in front of an apartment house entrance. Springing forward he assists the gentleman up the steps and courteously rings the bell for him. Later that evening he is sent to the same house to get the story of a mysterious shooting that has resulted in the death of the master of the house, Royce Rolston, a retired eye specialist. Grant, by his investigation, determines that the fatal wound has been inflicted by a shotgun. Rolston’s blind visitor had carried a heavy cane. Grant discovers circular marks upon the floor that appear to be powder stains. He questions the butler and from him learns that just prior to Rolston’s marriage, Dr. Standish had been blinded in a fight over Genevieve’s mother. Having established revenge as a motive and being suspicious of the cane carried by Dr. Standish, Grant gains admission to his apartment. He comes to grips with the blind man on the balcony but is unable to prevent him from tumbling to his death when the railing gives way. By a superhuman effort Grant swings himself clear and proceeds to the ground via some telephone wires, hanging head downwards until he can reach a rain spout leading to the street. The broken cane proves to be a cleverly devised weapon and another baffling case is cleared up by the Chronicle reporter’s ready wit. / (Chapter 15) James Manlove, a retired naval engineer, with the aid of his daughter Marjorie, perfects his discovery of the powerful violet ray for the use of the United States government. With the announcement of his success, his laboratory is invaded by agents of a rival government, who bind the inventor and blind him with his own machine when he refuses the information they seek. Marjorie, escaping, faints in the arms of Grant, police reporter on the Chronicle, who is homeward bound through the park. Calling a taxi, Grant places the girl in it and has her left in care of his landlady while he goes to summon a doctor. Dimitri sees Grant help the girl and returns for Orloff. They capture Marjorie and take her back to the laboratory. Marjorie’s plight is seen by Grant who is just returning with the doctor. Following them Grant reaches Manlove’s home but his entrance is barred. Climbing a telephone pole on the other side of the yard, Grant walks across the wires until he can swing into a third story window. With a revolver shot he smashes the switch controlling the violet ray machine as the foreign spies are about to use it on Marjorie. Grant’s story in the Chronicle creates a sensation. / (Chapter 16) Grant is detailed by his city editor to interview Major Russelle, just returned from Panama, about an attempt made by foreign spies to steal from him the plans of the canal’s fortifications. The spies ingratiate themselves into the favor of the Major’s wife and tempt her with a gorgeous necklace which she desires but is unable to pay for. When Grant calls for his interview he has an opportunity to see which way the wind is blowing, and the next day when he sees the Major’s wife descend in the hotel elevator and learns from the clerk that she has visited the spies’ apartments, his suspicions are aroused. He returns to the Major’s home and insists that the Major open his private safe to see if the plans are still there. They are missing. Calling a taxi, Grant rushes to the dock in time to see the boat well on its way down the harbor. Jumping into a gasoline launch he gives chase and as the speedy little craft runs alongside the giant liner he makes a leap for the rope ladder that has been lowered, boards the ship and finds the portfolio of plans hidden in the spies’ stateroom. Leaping into the sea he is picked up by the motor boat and returns in time to save Major Russelle’s wife from harming herself in remorse over having betrayed her husband’s honor. / (Chapter 17) Brandon, a police lieutenant, has made it extremely unhealthy for Mulhall and his partner Letson to continue their gambling operations. They plan revenge. Mulhall hires Benny, a gangster, to “plant” his I.O.U. for $2,500 on the person of Brandon. At the gambler’s trial, Mulhall accuses the policeman of raiding his place because he was unable to collect hush money. The I.O.U. is found in Brandon’s hat and he is stripped of his authority and held for trial. Grant, police reporter on the Chronicle, suspects that Brandon is the victim of a frame-up and trails the gambler to his quarters. Climbing the dumbwaiter shaft, he overhears Mulhall outline a plot to his accomplice for enticing the disgraced lieutenant to that room and then confronting him with detectives. Myrta, the lieutenant’s daughter, is also afraid that her father is the victim of a hoax and follows him when he starts to keep his appointment, dressed in boy’s clothes. Mulhall decides to double-cross his partner and hires Benny the gangster to finish him while the policeman is in the room. How Grant at the risk of his life saves Myrta from mortal injury at the hands of the gangster and brings Mulhall, the plotter, to justice provides a thrilling climax. / (Chapter 18) Micky, a boy of the tenements, discovers a strange pigeon in his coop atop the ugly tenement where he lives. Attached to its leg by a string is a valuable diamond ring. Micky takes the bird to the police station. Grant, police reporter on the Chronicle, is there to pick up a story. He writes a note requesting audience with the owner of the bird, ties the note to its leg and sets it free. Meanwhile Natalie, Mrs. Grandon Rice’s French maid, has rifled her employer’s wall safe, using a stethoscope to determine the fall of the tumblers. We see Natalie go to her room and take a carrier pigeon from the lower compartment of her washstand. Around its neck she places the pendant and chain and sets it free up a flue hole. She is searched and questioned about the robbery but there being no evidence she cannot be held. Daddy Greelick, a notorious “fence,” shows up at the appointed meeting place in answer to the blind message carried by the pigeon earlier in the day. When he makes a getaway, Grant hurries to the “fence’s” pawnshop and finding it locked mounts to the roof by the most convenient way, a rear fire escape. He and Greelick have a desperate fight on the roof and Grant is left senseless. When he recovers he slides down a rope to an adjoining building just in time to help capture the crook who had locked all doors behind him as he fled. / (Chapter 19) Grant, police reporter on the New York Chronicle, visits his bank to make a deposit. While filling out his deposit slip a piece of plaster falls from the ceiling to the desk. As he passes out and across the street he happens to look up at the window of an office directly over the banking rooms. A shade is hastily drawn by a young woman. Grant, his suspicions aroused, proceeds to the second floor. He knocks just as the silhouette of a woman’s head is revealed on the ground glass of the door. On his way to the office he meets Maddox, a detective, and tells him his suspicions. Maddox laughs. A daylight attempt to rob the bank. Only one crook on record, Chris Monk, would have the nerve to attempt it and he is lying low. Grant digs up some old clippings concerning this clever safecracker. One of them pictures Inez Monk obtaining a parole for her father. His suspicions confirmed, at six that evening Grant returns to the bank. He discovers a hole cut in the floor of the room above the bank, but is caught by the crooks and tied up. Monk descends into the bank below by means of a rope ladder, bearing a painted screen to set up before the vault door and so trick the watchman peering in from the street. Inez stands guard in the hall. Grant, left alone, begins to work at his hands. He manages to reach the telephone and jiggles a Morse code message to Central. Maddox responds with the reserves. Monk and Jimson are trapped in the bank building. Grant is now called upon for a supreme test of his nerve. Monk leaps through the window, across a narrow ledge to a building opposite before which a scaffold has been left, and starts to slide down a rope to his freedom. Grant leaps to the scaffolding, and seeing that his prisoner will escape, makes the big leap to the ground and luckily lands on a sand pile. He has no difficulty holding Monk until the detectives handcuff him. / (Chapter 20) Twenty-eight years before the story opens Major Chenilworth was forced to shoot a fellow officer in service with him in India. At the subsequent court-martial he was acquitted. He is now a nervous wreck. An eyewitness of that deplorable affair now serves in his household in the capacity of butler. Jardyce, the butler, aided by the “Spider,” a crafty old cripple of the underworld, conceives a plan to force the Major to name him in his will. The Major’s niece, Lois Trent, chances to meet Grant, police reporter on the “New York Chronicle.” She tells him that she suspects a deep-laid plot to bring about the death of her uncle. Grant, disguised as a gas inspector, discovers in the basement of the Chenilworth home a motion picture machine which can be raised through a trap door to the kitchen floor level. On guard that night, Grant sees the cook under Jardyce’s direction thread up the motion picture machine with a reel of film and focus it upon the door leading into the Major’s study. The lights go out and there, before his gaze, Major Chenilworth sees a reproduction of the scene where he unwittingly killed his fellow officer years before. Before it has faded out Jardyce has had the will altered in his favor. At this instant, Grant and Miss Trent burst into the room and the butler flees. Leaping into an auto Jardyce gets the jump on Grant, who is following on a bicycle. As pursued and pursuer draw near the railroad tracks, the butler has trouble with the engine and the car slows up. Grant leaps from the bicycle to the rear of the auto and gives battle. Just as a train comes thundering down upon them the engine is stalled and Grant leaps out barely in time to save his life. Jardyce pays the price for his plotting and Major Chenilworth recovers his health. / (Chapter 21) Grant is sent out by his city editor to get a statement from Mrs. Blanchard, the widow of a stock operator. It has been intimated in the stories of the millionaire’s sudden demise that his enemies cashed in heavily on short sales of stocks just a few hours before his death. One of the first things that Mrs. Blanchard shows Grant is her late husband’s personal diary. It contains a reference to the “Spider,” and intimates that “if the ‘Spider’ is behind this, I’m done for.” Grant insists that the widow accompany him to the private hospital where her husband’s death occurred. He interviews the doctor and the nurse, but they attribute the broker’s death to congestion caused by their patient taking a bath against orders. When the doctor leaves the room for a moment Grant, who has already formed his own theory, investigates. Beneath the bath tub where the stricken man had been found, he unearths some electric light cord, a socket connection and a rubber glove. Later, when Grant returns to the hospital to investigate further he is denied admittance. He has Mrs. Blanchard telephone the detectives to come at once and burst in the door if necessary, while he starts up the side of the building in an effort to gain admittance through a trap in the roof. Meantime the bogus doctor and his equally bogus nurse have been frantically working to clear away the last vestige of incriminating evidence. They have even ripped out the wiring in the cellar, but they know that Grant must have the tell-tale wire and glove in his possession. Grant finally gains an entrance into the room where the tragedy had occurred, and is set upon by the doctor and an assistant. In the struggle the wire and glove fall from his pocket, and Marguerita, the “Spider’s” trusted agent, uses it with telling effect upon the intrepid reporter. When the detectives burst into the room, Marguerita escapes by sliding down a rope ladder, but the “doctor” and his assistant are led away. Grant soon recovers from the shock administered to him, and is able to proceed to the Chronicle office and write his story. / (Chapter 22) George Brule, owner of the New York Chronicle, instructs Tom Grant, his star police reporter, to investigate a series of thefts of bonds reported by the president of the Merrimac Trust Co. Brule’s son, Harry, is an employee in this bank. Grant is taken on as a clerk in the Merrimac’s bond department, and notices that Harry Brule acts as though he had a load on his mind. Confident that his employer’s son knows something about the thefts, Grant watches him with the aid of a pocket mirror. He sees him take some bonds, stuff them in an inner pocket and hurry out of the office. Grant follows. The trail leads to a flashy restaurant. Brule is evidently in the toils of a dark haired demi-monde. He sends her to the telephone. As they leave the restaurant in a taxi, Grant follows in another one. Entering a mean looking alleyway, Grant sees that the girl has blindfolded young Brule. Before he has gone more than a few paces into this entrance court, Grant is engaged by two burly negroes who fight so viciously that the pair he is trailing have disappeared when he is again free. Inside the shabby looking house Brule comes face to face with the Spider, a master criminal, and the man who is swinging the stock, deals that are to make everybody rich. Brule turns over his bonds to the Spider to be used as collateral for additional speculating. Grant, by a series of almost impossible roof climbing, gains entrance to the Spider’s quarters. The birds have flown. But he has the proofs, and they involve a well-known bucket shop proprietor who undoubtedly has all the stolen bonds. After a spectacular exit out of the Spider’s retreat by means of the gutter pipes. Grant confronts this broker and obtains the bonds. It is now his painful duty to report to his employer that his own son has been the indiscreet thief. The story is hushed up and young Brule promises his father to make what amends he can for his wrongdoing. / (Chapter 23) Thaddeus Barrington, owner of the Goddard Steamship Company, disappears while on his yacht off the coast of Florida. He often had guests aboard and the story as telegraphed to the newspapers hints that perhaps his enemies have engineered the affair to prevent his being present at a meeting of the board of directors. When Tom Grant, reporter of the Chronicle, arrives in Florida, Barrington’s daughter Martha is almost ready to collapse. She is able to throw very little light upon the case. Grant’s arrival has been reported to the “Spider,” who had directed many similar affairs but always eluded the police. Barrington, a prisoner on his own yacht, writes on a slip of paper, places it in a bottle and drops it through a porthole. The message is fished out by a negro who is able to decipher the address. Refused admittance to the hotel, he appeals to Grant, who hurries to the wireless station and calls one of the submarines lying off the coast. He also ascertains that a wireless outfit has been sold to a certain address. Meantime, the “Spider” has instructed bis henchmen to “get the girl, too,” and when Grant tries to see her she is already a prisoner. Reasoning that Martha has been taken to the house of which he has the address. Grant hurries there, but finds all the doors locked. Bracing his hands on one wall of a narrow alley-way, and his feet on the other, he mounts to the roof with his body in a horizontal position. He is not a moment too soon, for the gangsters have left Martha a prisoner in a sealed room into which fumes of a deadly gas are pouring. Making a bridge of his body, Grant gets Martha across the areaway. When they return to the hotel they are just in time to greet Martha’s father, who has been rescued by the submarine commander. Barrington arrives in New York in time to cast his vote in the annual meeting, and foil the “Spider.” / (Chapter 24) Ralph Channing, a rather dissolute young man, plans to marry Doris, the daughter of Marsden Saltwell, a wealthy collector of antiques. He fails to convince Doris’ father that he is worthy or that his financial affairs are in good shape and in this frame of mind he calls upon Elwell, an unscrupulous attorney, for advice. Elwell is in league with the “Spider,” a master criminal who, from his invalid chair, directs the machinations of a notorious gang of rascals. Knowing nothing of his attorney’s plan, but willing to leave everything in his hands provided he can get the girl’s money, Channing consents. Doris’ father gets a polite note from an antique shop which calls attention to a rare vase just received and believed to have come down from the period when Lucretia Borgia held men’s lives in the palm of her hand. Saltwell buys the vase. That evening, in the presence of his daughter, he examines his purchase. As he inserts his hand to feel the finish of the inside he falls dead. Grant, police reporter on the Chronicle, accompanies the detective sent to investigate. On the back of the dead man’s hand he discovers three tiny punctures that have traces of a greenish substance spreading out underneath the skin. Picking up the vase that Doris says was in her father’s hand when he fell, he approaches the lawyer who has arrived as he says to discuss a business matter with the unfortunate master of the house. Elwell registers a horror of the vase that arouses all of Grant’s suspicions. The next day he does some sleuthing on his own account. Denied admittance to the lawyer’s office, he climbs across an “I” beam and so gains admittance through a rear window. Among the lawyer’s papers he finds the address of the antique dealer. She is arrested and confesses that poisoned needless were concealed within the vase sold to Marsden Saltwell. Elwell, trapped, admits that it was the “Spider’s” idea to get Saltwell out of the way before he could change his will and thereby insure the money falling to whoever married Doris. / (Chapter 26) In room 422 of the Hotel Mountford, the lifeless body of a woman is found. Grant, police reporter on The New York Chronicle, finds in the room a cigarette case engraved with the name “R. Du Reel.” Placed under arrest that afternoon, Du Reel tells the following story. The murdered woman was his wife. A few years ago she left him and ran away with his business partner, Paul Darsey. He read in the paper that the boat on which they were to have sailed for Europe went down on the way over. Believing his wife dead, he later became engaged to marry Helen North. Only this morning, in the home of his fiancée, his wife suddenly entered the room and confronted him. She demanded money, or she would tell who she was and stop his marriage. He persuaded her to accompany him to the Hotel Mountford and try to arrange a settlement. There he gave her five thousand dollars and left her. Only a few hours ago he had learned of her death. Grant returns to the Hotel Mountford to investigate. He discovers a torn piece of note. Questioning a bellhop, he finds out that the boy delivered this note for Mrs. Du Reel to a tenement in a poor section of the city. Grant hurries to this tenement, and although refused admission by the landlady, he gains entrance by scaling the fire escape of the building next door, and leaping across an alleyway of the room he wanted to enter. There he finds a blood-stained shirt. During his investigations, Paul Darsey enters the room and attacks Grant. The police reporter is victorious and has Darsey placed under arrest. Darsey confesses. When he ran away with May Du Reel some years ago, they missed the boat intended to take them to Europe. They went to the dogs after that, and were soon reduced to poverty. A few days ago, Darsey read in the paper of Du Reel’s engagement. Seeing an opportunity to get some money, he sent May to blackmail her husband. That afternoon he received a note from her at the Hotel Mountford, telling him to meet her there. He went there, and found May weakening. Her husband had told her of the death of their child and, conscience-stricken, she wanted to give the $5,000 back to Du Reel. They quarreled; she struggled, and in an attempt to get the money, Darsey seized a water pitcher, and struck her on the head. Seeing that he had killed her, he made a getaway. Darsey is placed under arrest, and Du Reel, freed, is reunited to his fiancée. / (Chapter 27) Grant, police reporter on The New York Chronicle, is assigned to interview Jenny Dobbs on her sixtieth birthday. Jenny, the richest woman in the United States, has the reputation of being the meanest. She refuses Grant the interview, but his disappointment is assuaged when he makes the acquaintance of Jenny’s niece, Claire. “Two-Spot” Thomey, a confidence man, learns that Jenny has in her possession two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of bonds. While she is on her way to the butcher shop to do her own shopping, he kidnaps her in a taxi and takes her to a room in a tenement in Throgg’s Neck. There he fails to force her in sign an order for the bonds, and determines to keep her a prisoner until she agrees to sign. Worried over her aunt’s failure to return from the butcher shop, Claire seeks the assistance of her friend, Tom Grant. He promises to look her aunt up, but the next day he has nothing but failure to report. He takes Claire out to lunch in the Shanghai Café. There Grant sees a man whom he recognizes as Phil Kelsey, who poses as a doctor, but who, in reality, is a confidence man. Thomey enters and sits down at the table with Kelsey. Grant overhears him say, “Yes, old Jenny Dobbs, I’ve got her up at Throgg’s Neck, but I can’t get her to come across.” Kelsey says, “Take me to her; I think I can make her see things your way.” When they leave the café and jump into a taxi, Grant and Claire follow them. Arrived at Throgg’s Neck, Grant sees the two conspirators enter the house and lock the door after them. But he manages to gain a point of vantage by scaling fire-escapes to the roof of the next building. From here he sees Kelsey trying to force Jenny to sign the order by threatening her with a small, sharp knife. Grant appropriates the flagpole from the roof, winds the rope around it, stretches the pole across to the roof of the house in which Jenny is a prisoner, and by catching hold of the end of the rope and jumping off the roof, Grant is able to lower himself to Jenny’s window and at the same time swing across to her building. He leaps through the window, just in time to save her. Claire has, meanwhile, gone for the police, who arrive and make Thomey and Kelsey prisoners. Jenny produces the bonds out of her old umbrella, awards Grant with fifty cents for his trouble, and is persuaded to consent to an interview. / (Chapter 28) Grant, police reporter, saves little Billy from being run over by an automobile and takes him to his mother, Marie Le Blanc, in their room in a poor tenement. He is surprised when Marie suddenly shoves him in a closet. He hears footsteps of a man with a limp and then the words, “Be ready to light out this afternoon.” The man leaves, and Marie begs Grant not to ask any questions. Returning to the office, Grant is assigned to interview Colonel Smithton, whose house was robbed. He meets the colonel’s daughter, Ethel, and her fiancé, Count Leone, and discovers footprints outside the window which shows that the robber was a man using a crutch. Grant returns to the tenement to investigate his clue. Marie admits the man with the limp is her husband. She hears him coming again, and shoves Grant into the closet. But Grant accidentally makes a noise. The man hears it, forces Grant to come out and ties him up. Then accusing his wife of treachery, he ties her to a chair. He takes Billy and leaves. Grant manages to free himself and release Marie. She tells him that her husband planned to leave on the three o’clock boat for South America. Grant reaches the pier, lassos the mast of the steamer and swings on board. He is brought to the room engaged by the man described by Grant and is astounded when Count Leone walks out. Billy runs up and exclaims, “Come and look at the water, daddy.” Grant then understands. Colonel Smithton’s jewels are found on the Count, and he is place under arrest, while Grant takes little Billy back to his mother. / (Chapter 29) Grant, police reporter on the New York Chronicle, chances to meet Mary Neal upon her arrival in New York. He tells her the way to the hotel where she desired to stop. She gets into a taxi, driven by an accomplice of the Spider, and is taken to the Spider’s apartment, where she is held a prisoner. Arriving at the office, Grant is shown a clipping that Mary Neal, sole heir to a vast fortune, has been found and will arrive in New York today. Grant goes to the hotel to interview her, and is shown up to Miss Neal’s room and is astounded to find another woman posing as Mary Neal. Mary ties a white scarf in her window and writes on Grant’s card: “Am a prisoner in room with a white scarf in the window,” and drops the card out of the window. A newsboy takes it to Grant, who starts to find the window. The Spider has learned Mary’s plan, and determines to remove her from the house. Grant sees the scarf in the window in time to trail the Spider’s accomplice and the girl to a house in the suburbs. He rescues Mary by climbing a tree and leaping to the roof of the house. He overpowers the man left to guard her, and hurries back with Mary to the attorney’s office just as “Slippery Margaret,” posing as Mary Neal, is about to get possession of the bonds. “Margaret” is placed under arrest, and Mary thanks Grant for bringing her first experience in New York to a happy termination.
Reviews: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? (Chapter 11) George Larkin performs two daring stunts in this episode of the “Grant, Police Reporter” series. He leaps from the roof of a porch into a tree, and later jumps from a bridge into an automobile that is passing under it. The story of this reel tells how the reporter recovers valuable papers that have been stolen from a Government representative. Some good melodramatic scenes are embraced in the reel. // [The Moving Picture World, 3 February 1917, page ?] (Chapter 15) This number of the “Grant, Police Reporter” series is as interesting as any preceding release. The reel is crammed with story. The intrepid Mr. Larkin this time furnishes a thrill when he gains access to a house by walking on a telephone wire while grasping with his hands a wire above. In the house he rescues the daughter of the man who invented a violet ray machine for the United States Government, and who has been blinded with his own rays by foreign plotters. The daughter is about to receive the same treatment when the reporter arrives on the scene. Credit is due Director Robert Ellis for several touches that lend realism to the film. In the cast with Mr. Larkin and Mr. Ellis are Ollie Kirkby, Harry Gordon and Cyril Courtney. // [The Moving Picture World, 10 February 1917, page ?] (Chapter 16) This reel, an episode in the “Grant, Police Reporter” series, shows the reporter, George Larkin, in more daring stunts. Pursuing spies who have stole Panama Canal plans, he first makes a flying leap to the rope ladder hanging from the stern of a steamer, and later leaps from the high stern into the water. The story told on the screen is interesting. Action is fast. The reporter this time is fired because he refuses to give the new city editor a story told him in confidence. But he gets his job back after he recovers the plans and gets a better story. In the cast with George Larkin are Ollie Kirkby, Director Robert Ellis, Harry Gordon and Cyril Courtney. // [The Moving Picture World, 17 February 1917, page ?] (Chapter 17) There are a number of live thrills in “The Trap,” the latest episode of the “Grant, Police Reporter,” series. The Kalem picture in which George Larkin has the title role tells how the newspaper chap prevented a gang of crooks from disgracing a police officer, the father of the girl he loves. Grant performs some interesting stunts in a dumbwaiter shaft, while on the track of the gang, and winds up by taking a flying leap from a third-story window to a distant telegraph pole. Ollie Kirkby, in the person of the police officer’s daughter, gets into a boy’s suit of clothes and has a lively set-to with one of the crooks. Action runs riot throughout the reel, and other members of the cast that do good work are Robert Ellis, Harry Gordon, Bert Tracey and M. Cohen. Robert Ellis directed the picture.
Survival status: (unknown) : A print exists of Chapter 11.
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Keywords: Newspaper reporters - Serials
Listing updated: 31 May 2024.
References: Lahue-Bound p. 85 : Website-IMDb.
Home video: DVD.
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