Synopsis

[US release - 1916] Episode Two: "The Red Notebook" When Philip Guard and the police broke into the cellar where the Vampires had planned to execute him. The mysterious bandits fled through an underground passage. However, one of them dropped a red notebook which contained a mere jumble of letters. Guard, a wide-awake newspaper man, finally deciphered it, and from its pages learned many of the secrets of the Vampires. Upon finding that the book had come into the reporter's possession, the desperate men planned to get it back. A spy was set to watch him. but Philip escaped from his home unnoticed and made his way to a café in the slums where the band often met. At the café, Guard was surprised to find that a pretty woman who sang there, Irma Vep, appeared to be in league with the Vampires. The Grand Vampire, or as he was known, The Great Julot, soon led his followers into an inner, secret room. Here the reporter was unable to follow them. Returning home, he was overtaken by the breaking of day and knew that it would be hard to escape the spy. Fortunately, he remembered that the chimney in his room was very large, and down this he climbed to escape observation. No sooner was he in his room than a brick about which a note was tied came crashing down the chimney. It said: "A friend who knows the house is watched is waiting above for you to make a signal in the chimney, as he must pay you a short visit." Philip burned a newspaper in the fireplace as a signal. Soon Normandin crawled out of the chimney. Normandin warned Philip of the Vampires' scheme to do him harm and at the same time recover the red notebook. He gave Philip a fountain pen filled with a deadly poison, which he had stolen from the Grand Vampire. No sooner had Normandin disappeared up the chimney than a ring of the bell announced the arrival of Amie Goff, a new maid. Mrs. Guard found nothing unusual about her, but Philip, instinctively suspected the pretty young woman. He kept wondering where he had seen her flashing eyes before. When Amie had been observed by Philip trying to drug him, he knew that she was a Vampire. The girl thought that she had administered a sleeping potion. Word came for Mrs. Guard that her brother had been dangerously injured. Despite the lateness of the hour she set out to go to him. Philip was unable to accompany her, but he pressed upon her the poison pen which he had received from Normandin. Mrs. Guard had been tricked. Her brother had not been injured. She found herself in the clutches of the Vampires. A mute, Father Silence, was left to guard her and extort from her a letter to her son telling him to come to her. Mrs. Guard stabbed Father Silence with the poisoned pen, and made her escape from the den. She hastened home to find that Amie Goff had admitted a Vampire to search for the red notebook. Philip had shot him, as he thought, and then hurried for the police. Upon his return they ad vanished, and when his revolver was examined it was found that the Vampires had substituted blank cartridges for those which he had himself placed in the chambers. The Great Julot, the Vampire admitted by the maid, who was herself Irma Vep, hastened with the girl to the den of Father Silence in the hope of finding Mrs. Guard there. What they found was the dead body of their comrade. The Vampires swore a mighty oath to continue their efforts to kill Philip Guard.—Moving Picture World synopsis

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