The Black Judge was the most relentless criminal judge to have ever sat on the bench in a score of ugly years. Even once when the hangman refused to execute a prisoner whom he had sentenced to death, the Black Judge himself took command in the prison yard, had the condemned man escorted to the gallows by a core of rattling snare drums and then with his own hands sprang the trap and sent his victim dancing in to eternity. He was well named was Black Judge, Henry Arthur Cole and he lived long this man. He died in fact less than a year ago hated and deserted by all save his three children. And then a month after his death, the horror began...