Hard-working insurance company bookkeeper John Carter, comes home Easter eve to his suburban cottage with a potted lily for his loving wife and two daughters. The Carters live happily until cashier Charles Ryder is murdered by the night watchman, a "coke sniffer" in need of money, and Carter is accused because he worked with Ryder that evening.
Crotchety early talkie has gangster framing his moll, Livingston, for a murder he himself committed. When she is released eight years later she sets out to turn the tables.