Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 853

Catalog Note "Fight for a Million: A Story of Philadelphia and New York" by Harold Payne, serialized in this weekly dime novel, unfolds as a confidence scheme narrative. Two men traveling from Philadelphia to New York discuss an elaborate fraud: the younger man, Hal Adair, an actor, will impersonate an impoverished English nobleman (Lord Noddleford) to marry a wealthy heiress, Miss Melrose, and secure half her million-dollar fortune before the real lord arrives. The elder conspirator has arranged financing through a shylock nicknamed "the Corkscrew," a Jewish moneylender living in a Harlem shanty. Unknown to them, Thad Burr, a headquarters detective posing as an elderly farmer, overhears their plans on the train and follows them through New York. The narrative balances criminal scheming against detective pursuit across Philadelphia and New York settings.