Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1919)

H i The Crimson Iris By H. H. VAN LOAN Announcing the Closing of Our Great Mystery Story Contest Winners of $300 Cash Prizes and Final Chapter to Appear Next Month You who have been following this intensely interesting serial from month to month know that we offered $300.00 in cash prizes for the solution to this mystery, which would nearest coincide with the author's final chapter. The conditions were that $300.00 in cash prizes should be awarded to those who sent in the best solutions, and these solutions were to be sent in monthly. The first guess or even the second you submitted might be wrong, but that would not prevent you from winning first prize. All solutions were to be sent in on postal cards, postmarked on or before the 20th of the month preceding the date of the magazine. Postal cards should be addressed "Crimson Iris Editors, 175 Duffield St., Brooklyn, N. Y." ,The prizes are to be awarded on all the cards, not on the final one only. Each card had to be numbered, thus : your first card should read "The Crimson Iris, No. 1," your second card "No. 2," and so on. We expect you have been wrong in one or more of your guesses — perhaps in all but your last ; but so long as your deductions have been logical or probable, you have a chance for first prize. Your last card must contain a solution. It must contain a very brief synopsis of what the last instalment will be. The last card will count for more than all the others put together, but it will help you greatly in getting a prize if you have mailed a card every month, even if some of them were poor guesses. Now is the time to send in your last card. The contest closes on June 20th. After that date no solutions will be accepted. The final chapter of the story "The Crimson Iris" will appear in the August number of the Motion Picture Magazine. At the same time, the judges will attempt to have completed the list of winners who have most correctly solved the solution of the murder. If the time is too short, the winners may not be announced until the following month. But dont forget, this is your last opportunity to solve the murder mystery and win one of our cash prizes, which will be divided as follows : 1st prize. 2nd " . 3rd " . 4th " . $100.00 Sth prize $25.00 50.00 6th " 20.00 40.00 7th " 15.00 35.00' 8th " 10.00 9th prize $5.00 (0& IxiyJ SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS OF "THE CRIMSON IRIS" Arthur Gebhardt, president of the American Cinema Company, disappears weirdly from his London hotel. His only intimate in the city, Brenon Hodges, a man of fashion, notifies the police. It transpires that Gebhardt was not an American, but a German born in Laupheim, and that he had been travelling with a false passport. Harry Letherdale, star man of the "Chronicle" and expert criminologist, becomes interested in the case. He goes to Scotland Yard and discloses the fact that he has found Gebhardt's opera hat and wallet containing his card on the parapet of Hungerford Bridge. Brenon Hodges is suspected of implication. At this juncture word is received that Arthur Gebhardt has been found at the Victoria Studios — murdered! Letherdale and Inspector Henry of Scotland Yard go immediately to the Victoria Studios and there find the body of Gebhardt attired in conventional evening clothes, with no sign of struggle or suffering. They assemble together the people working in the studio and question them with little or no result. The coroner is summoned and is equally at a loss. As they are leaving they overhear Charles Dunn, the assistant laboratory man, questioning the camera-man about an irish'e "shot" that morning.. "You shot two," he tells him; "I only made one iris, declares the camera-man. "You made two," reiterates Dunn, "and I colored them both crimson." The camera-man, Pliny, is sent to the Yard for further questioning and the police proceed to "follow up" Rita di Garma, star at the Victoria Studio and known to have been a friend of Arthur Gebhardt's. Rita di Garma first denies all charges, then, confronted with evidence, admits her love for Gebhardt, which, she claims turned to hatred when he insulted her and proved himself to be a German spy. This supplies Letherdale with fresh impetus and he follows two suspicious looking Germans to a public house where he overhears them talking of the murder in terms of satisfaction. He seeks the London office of the Cinema Company of America and finds it obscurely located. We leave him planning a new coup. Letherdale follows the German clue, and posing as one of them extracts considerable information from a man named Gantz — so considerable that he uncovers a veritable nest of spies of which Arthur Gebhardt, christened Rudolph Klemsmidt, was one. He also locates the bullet which was supposed to have killed Gebhardt in a set at the studio and advances a further theory of poison. CHAPTER VII (Continued from June) "In the Spring of 1915 Gebhardt made a trip. across the Atlantic for the purpose of establishing a London branch for his company. Little did he realize that the German spy gang, then working in America, had been closely watching his movements ever since the Summer of 1914, and that he was being trailed continually. For you must take into consideration that such influential men as Gebhardt have been most valuable to Germany abroad. It is the men in high walks of life; men who move among the kings of Wall Street and are social peers, who are able to render the Fatherland great service. "Therefore it is not strange that Gebhardt was followed by an emissary of Von Cleft, the chief of the German agents in the United States, when he sailed for London in the Spring 'of 1915. When he left New York he was a German-American, who could be cownted on to remain loyal to the land of his adoption, in case of a split between these two countries. This would be inspired by a sense of loyalty, and the knowledge that he had extensive business interests in the United States. "But something happened before the boat arrived in the English Channel, and when he descended the gangway at Plymouth he had made a sacred vow to stand by the Fatherland, regardless of what might transpire in the future!" "What had prompted this complete change — blackmail?" inquired Letherdale, who had listened with great interest to the superintendent's story. "Exactly," replied Frost. "You understand what it would mean to a man in his position to be threatened with an expose of his past life. He couldn't permit it, at any cost, for it would ruin him financially and socially. A passenger on that boat had sailed for the sole purpose of 'getting' Arthur Gebhardt! And before the boat reached England he had promised that he would faithfully carry out any orders he might receive from Von Cleft in the future. From that VSPJ J