Beadle's Dime Library No. 395

This issue of Beadle's Dime Novels (Vol. XXX, No. 395, May 19, 1886) contains the opening installment of "A Fight for Five Millions" by Joseph E. Badger Jr., author of "Old 49" and other dime novels. The story concerns three conspirators—the elderly lawyer Silas Cramp, his son Rufus, and the smooth operator Kyte Darley—who scheme to forge the will of the wealthy dying man Romulus Wellspring to inherit his five-million-dollar fortune. Their plan unravels when Wellspring, suspecting foul play, has physicians certify his mental competence and deposits his authentic will with a banker, leaving everything to his daughter Portia. Rufus's past romantic entanglement with a woman connected to "the Duke of Derringers" is briefly referenced. The conspirators must now devise a new scheme to access or replace the secured will.