The Haslingden Gazette. — 1910-03-19 (Haslingden, Lancashire, England)

THE PLOT. : The play opens at "The Wheatedaeof " on , "Derby" Day, where a number of sporting men • are assembled in the Skittle Alley. Denver ap: pears in a drunken state, and having lost all his money by betting he in a ruined man. He takes , more drink, and at this juncture his wife, who has come after him and tries to persuade him to return home, is spoken to insultingly by a former . los-or, Geoffrey Ware, who has sworn to bring Denver to ruin. Denver, heated with drink, threatens to shoot Ware, and producing a revolver follows Ware to his rooms in Hatton Garden. He arrives there at the very time that a daring burglary is being oonunitted by a swell oracksman , named Captain Skinner, familiarly known as "The Spider." who is accompanied by a motley gang of confederates. Denver is ohlorofortned and laid on the Boor to prevent him from interfering with the villains' plans, and on Ware subsequently appearing before the gang have got away "The Spider" shoats him with Denver's revolver so as to throw suspicion off himself. The burglars escape by the leads, and Denver, on recovering from his stupefaction, is horrified to-find himaolf in the presence of Ware's dead body. Remembering his drunken threat, he concludes that he ; has committed murder, and ru,hing home informs , his broken-hearted wife, who urges him to Oscape. Ile is provided with a disguise to use later on, and has only just left the house when Baxter. • the detective, arrives at the house to find his prey 5 missing. Denver books to Liverpool intending to leave the train at the fleet stopping place and thus throw the police off the scent, and the train leaves just before Baxter reaches the station. log a description of the missing man. he finds • that he has left by that particular train, and osoertaining that the first stopping place ins Rugby, as lit% to the police there to arrest Denver. The Utter, however, eludes them, for having donned t his sailor disguise ho leaps out of the train before ' it reaches Rugby, and after a long tied weary I tramp he reaches a village inn twenty miles assay. and here he learns that the train by which he had travelled was wrecked and burnt to a cinder before it reached Rugby. The newspapers reporting that he was one of the victims, he sees a way of escape, for the world believing him to be dead he allows it to do so. He starts for Bristol and proceeds to the silver mines of Nevada. where after many trials ho amasses a fortune. The wife and children in the meantime are left on the verge of starvation, but are maintained by the efforts of the old and faithful servant Jaikes, who ha.s never left them, and at a crucial moment in their history. when they are to be turned out of their miserable cottage by "The Spider," who is the owner, Denver, now the millionaire, reappears on the scene, and the trials and difficulties of wife and children are at an end, but he dare not disclose his identity for fear of being tried for murder, therefore he pledges Jaikce to secrecy, and the latter tells them he has been left a fortune by an uncle in America. Denver, who is known as John Franklyn, "the silver king," determines to as etch the gang of thieves, believing that they know something about the murder in Hatton Garden. and after six months' patient and clever work he unmasks them and learns that it was "The Spider" who committed the murder. Thereupon proceeds to his ,rife and children, who are luxuriously established at their old country home, the Grange. and in a joyous scene discloses himself. Baxter had already arrested the minor members of the gang, and "The Spider," who appears at the Grange, is run to oa.rth by Baxter and disappears handcuffed and chagrined with the scaffold looming in his mind's eye. Happinew is thus brought to the Denver family. and with this the play terminates.