Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 413

The Dragon League by Captain Howard Holmes continues in this September 1886 issue. Chapter I, "Coolly Despoiled," depicts millionaire banker Ferguson Fowler visited at night by Mortimer Nogg, who claims leadership of a mysterious organization seeking an iron box and documents locked in Fowler's safe. Nogg reveals the League has tracked the items and their hidden possessor, Silas Selkirk (Fowler's true identity), using Fowler's servant Duke Dado, a four-foot dwarf, as an unwitting guide. After forcing the safe open, Nogg seizes the box and papers, then incapacitates Fowler with aromatic smoke from a burning pastille.

Chapter II, "Elegant Ahab," shifts to dialogue between a man and woman discussing consequences: Fowler remains comatose since the robbery; Dado has disappeared; and Nydia, Fowler's ward, guards the safe. The woman references "Elegant Ahab" (the man's epithet) and warns he'll face a formidable detective—implied to be Captain Coldgrip—if Fowler recovers. They debate whether the incapacitating pastilles involved poisoning.