A Decree of Justice
Directed by Tom RickettsWill Markell, a happy-go-lucky, careless sort, arrives home about 2 AM, half-intoxicated, throwing a pack of cards and some dice on the table. His brother Ed has been waiting for him and tells him that he had better go West and try to make a man of himself. Studious, ambitious Ed is working on a bank-vault-door safety device. Out West, Will uses up his money and tries his luck with his last few coins in a craps game and loses all. He receives a letter from his mother, telling him of Ed's final success with his patent. Will decides to return home and feign blindness to learn of the mechanism of Ed's safety device. The installation of the device is made, the president, cashier, and board of directors being present, also Mrs. Markell, Ed, and Will--whom everyone believes is blind. Ed's private secretary Mason, the only person he has trusted with his plan. takes them from the safe to refer to them. This Ed learns through his stenographer. A month later, Ed, Will, and their mother are seated at breakfast when Ed is notified by telephone that there has been an attempted robbery at the bank and the burglars were partially successful in opening the vault. Ed immediately suspects Mason, who is discharged. Ed is requested to try to effect a more complete safety device. This he does, after hours of work, but drops into a doze about midnight. Will enters from the garden through the French windows and. still feigning blindness, convinces himself that Ed is asleep and sees and learns of the complete mechanism of the safety device. The next night Will enters with a skeleton key. The bank watchman is napping. Will approaches the vault. Quietly but quickly he opens the outer vault door and is about to open the second steel bar door to which is attached the safety device when "nature intervenes" and Will is actually stricken blind. Strain on the optic nerve through feigning blindness has been too great. He unknowingly grasps the safety device. The police officers are summoned through it, but he finds his way home before they arrive. They follow in his footsteps immediately. He enters the same French windows, staggers, actually falling over the library table, the same one that he had previously always seen, but apparently did not see. The noise summons his brother. The officers enter and are about to take him away, when their mother coming downstairs is stopped by Ed. He draws the portieres covering Will's fate from her view. The officers take Will, who pleads with Ed, "For God's sake, do not tell Mother!" And their mother never knew.
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