Wealthy orphan Carol Gordon marries the executor of her estate, though she does not love him. Soon afterward, trying to help a friend who is being blackmailed, she is misunderstood by her husband to be herself compromised.
Holmes is called to a manor house to investigate the brutal murder of a country lord with a fireplace poker and reconcile the story of his bruised and battered wife with the facts.
Rancher Bill Holt has a small homestead and insists on holding onto his land, much to the chagrin of crotchety old Judd Acker, a neighboring rancher who would like to see him vacate.
After the death of their father, a travelling showman, Iris Belmore and her little brother Billy are engaged to play in a circus owned by George Munro.
When theatrical agent Sterling, a ladies man known for signing his latest paramours onto his agency's talent roster, returns to New York from a trip to Europe, he tells his more down-to-earth partner, Lawson, that he has hired a beautiful Neopolitan acrobat he saw onstage in Italy.
On a carnival evening in Nice, when Jeanne Olier is to be engaged to a certain Natahlie Rouhais, a mysterious woman in black enter the room and violently demands the young girl to renounce this marriage.