Beadle's Dime Library No. 724

This issue of *Beadle & Adams* (No. 724, September 7, 1892) features "The Last of the Nine: A Romance of the Black Tie" by Captain Howard Holmes, beginning serially. The narrative centers on Laban Joyce, a wealthy millionaire in New York who is blackmailed for five thousand dollars by criminals who threaten to reveal the presence of a mysterious "Man from Montana." The protagonist is confronted by a woman thought dead—evidently from his past in Montana—who reveals herself as member of the "Soft-Handed," an organization opposed to the "League of the Black Tie," a criminal syndicate of former Sundown associates now operating in the city. The plot involves hidden secrets, blackmail schemes, and mysterious past entanglements threatening Joyce's respectable life and his daughter Portia.