Sir Arthur Blantyre has become haggard in his worry over some unspoken threat, and his granddaughter Ethel suggests he confide in someone trustworthy: in particular, her childhood friend Lawrence Hatton, who is about to be released from imprisonment for a crime he did not commit. Blantyre employs Hatton to keep tabs on the opium-addicted artist Victor Le Blanc, who is working on a painting that is somehow threatening Blantyre's well-being, but on discovering Blanc's body in the studio with the defaced painting, Hatton becomes a murder suspect, despite the fact that the body vanishes and someone manages to secretly repair the canvas. Not to mention the retired actress who looks like Ethel, the journalist who takes on Hatton's case, and the mysterious millionaire who disguises himself as a whistle-playing beggar.