Beth is horrified that they have become unwitting extras in a motion picture, for the films she has seen she found atrocious and contrived.

He becomes devoted to the Stantons and the nieces, and claims to have the means to support a chain of twenty theatres for the girls, which will be more cost effective than the one or two that they had planned.

He thinks he can easily prove his case, although based on circumstantial evidence, and will soon have Jones extradited, though Uncle John and the others are quite certain, with the more information that they gather, that Le Drieux's case is full of holes and spend the rest of the novel working to prove Jones's innocence.

To this effect, John Merrick hires a fresh young guitar-playing attorney, Fred A. Colby, a recent graduate of Penn Law School who has never fought a case and is eager to prove himself.

In this book, Baum also name-drops himself by having Uncle John make reference to fairytale authors whose work had been filmed.