Marion Marlowe's Cleverness, or, Exposing a Bold Fraud

# Marion Marlowe's Cleverness; or, Exposing a Bold Fraud

This serialized story by Grace Shirley, published November 17, 1900, follows a complex romance and revenge plot set in New York. Musical critic Howard Everett collides on a rainy street with Professor Edmund Arden, a pianist who confesses his desperation: his former beloved, Adrienne, has been abandoned by her worthless husband and left destitute. Arden declares his intention to punish the man fatally. Everett, himself hopelessly in love with a country singer named Marion Marlowe (whose picture he has stolen), sympathizes deeply. At their club, Arden reveals his nemesis is Luigi Carbonnel, a thirty-year-old gambler and charlatan posing as a young gentleman, currently lodging at the Norwood Hotel with his uncle Frederic Stanton. Everett recognizes him immediately. The narrative establishes a framework for exposure and retribution against Carbonnel's fraudulent schemes and abandonment of his wife.