- A writer bets a friend that he can write a 10,000-word novel in 24 hours. The friends takes the bet, and gives him the keys to his Baldpate Inn, which has been closed for the winter, so he can write in complete seclusion. Things start heating up, though, when a succession of people who also have keys to the inn begin showing up.—frankfob2@yahoo.com
- George Washington Magee, a writer, arrives at Baldpate Inn to win a bet from its owner by beginning a novel at midnight one day and finishing it by midnight the next. Magee has hardly gone to his room when there enters John Bland, "right hand man" of a street railway builder, with two hundred thousand dollar. Jim Cargan, mayor of Renton, is to call for the money and to give a franchise to the railway builder, Thomas Haydan. Surprised by the novelist, Bland presses his revolver against the digestive organs of Magee who declines to be frightened because, as he remarks, "I've written this situation over and over again." He entraps the bribe giver, and locks him in a room, only to be confronted by an intruder with a third key, Mary Norton, a newspaper reporter on the trail of the bribe story. Mary is accompanied by Mrs. Rhodes, the fiancée of the mayor. George falls in love with the reporter. Myra Thornhill, working in conjunction with Lou Max, accomplice of the mayor, Lets herself in with a fourth key, and is toying with the safe combination, when the author bids her stand and deliver. Myra persuades him of the honesty of her motives, and he promises to get the money for her. The same promise he makes later to Mary. Then the fun is invaded by Cargan, and Max, and the escaped Bland. Magee secures the incriminating roll, turns it over to Mary, and outwitting the villains, compels them to sit in a semi-circle staring at the audience until the telephone shall notify him that Mary is at the office of her newspaper. Facing defeat and imprisonment, the scoundrels turn on one another. Haydan calls Bland a blockhead. Cargan accuses Max of having "double-crossed: him and Myra admits she meant to "triple-cross" Max. A telephone call from Mary announces that Mrs. Rhodes has stolen the money. Max shoots Myra for "squealing" and the shot brings the chief of police. The money is located, the officer of the law takes possession and telephones his wife to meet him in Canada. With a cry of rage Peter, the half-crazed hermit, snatches the money and throws it into the fire. Then the dead Myra promenades around the balcony when Magee is about to collapse, the owner of Baldpate arrives and informs him that the affair has been a melodrama staged by himself in order to win the bet, the participants being members of a theatrical company. In the next scene we see Magee finishing his book at the stroke of twelve and learns the entire proceedings have been his imagination which are embodied in the book.
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