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Learn more- 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.
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