The Deep Purple

Doris Moore is the daughter of a minister living at a small country town a few hours' distance from New York. She helps her father in his work among his congregation, teaches in the Sunday school and plays the wheezy old organ in the church. The household is thrown into a mild state of excitement on receipt of a letter purporting to come from an organ supply company in New York, but which in reality is from a band of crooks who use this as one of the fraudulent schemes whereby they obtain money from the unwary. The letter offers to supply a beautiful pipe organ on receipt of an installment of one third of the cost, the balance to be paid on time. The matter is laid before the deacons and they decide to consider the offer. The minister writes to the organ company and the chief of the crooks, Harry Leland, a handsome, dashing man of the world, arrives and explains in glowing terms the advantages of the organ. While waiting for the deacons to collect the first installment of two hundred dollars, Leland pays considerable attention to Doris, who is much fascinated by him, representing as he does a totally different type of man to what she has been used to. In the meantime, the crooks in New York have received information from out west that Will Lake, a young eastern college man who in two years has made a fortune of fifty thousand dollars, is returning east, and will stay in New York for a week. They decide to try to blackmail Lake on his arrival and at once communicate with Leland, who replies that he will return immediately as soon as he gets the organ money. Leland has become attracted by the freshness and beauty of Doris and decides to lure her to New York and then make use of her in the crooks' nefarious schemes. He protests violent love for her and proposes marriage, and Doris consents. Immediately after receiving the two hundred dollars from the deacons, he approaches Doris as she leaves Sunday school and with well-simulated despair tells her he has received very bad news and that he is threatened with ruin and begs her to go to New York with him as she alone can save him. After much persuasion, Doris' scruples are overcome and she returns with Leland who takes her to the boarding house run by 'Frisco Kate, a house which is used by the crooks as a meeting place. It is decided to have Doris act as a decoy and to get Lake to visit a flat which has been prepared beforehand. She is therefore told that Lake has defrauded her lover Leland of a considerable sum