Under the Rouge

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Several years after the war, during which they were decorated, Whitey and Skeeter are blowing safes for a living. While pulling off a job, Skeeter is surprised by the police and killed. Taken into custody, Whitey learns that a lounge lizard named Mal, who hangs around on the edge of the underworld, is the police informer responsible for Skeeter's death. Whitey is held as a material witness, but, through the good offices of an old Army buddy, he is released. Looking for Kitty, his underworld sweetheart, who has gone to the country to find peace and quiet, Whitey finds her in a small town and, believing her to be in love with Fred Morton, a bank clerk, pretends that he has found another girl. Mal arrives in town as the advance man for a confidence agent who poses as an evangelist, and he persuades Evelyn, the daughter of Skeeter's mother, with whom she is living, to elope with him. Kitty learns of this and, in order to expose Mal, tells the story of her own criminal past. Fred drops her, and Kitty tries to drown herself in the river. Whitey saves her life, and exposes Fred as an embezzler.