Geoffrey Holden (Lloyd Corrigan) is an elderly con-man who is a lovable old man when providing his beloved granddaughter (Gigi Perreau) with the simple luxuries of life, yet has no qualms when working a racket devised to relieve his victims of their property. Trudy Marshall is the governess of the granddaughter, and is in love with a detective (Michael Duane) who is about to expose the old man's unsuspected activities.

Raised by Natalie Brennan, a flamboyant and irresponsible mother, Ziggy Brennan gets involved in hustling men at a young age. She hangs around with a wild crowd and learns gets her "street smarts" first from her mother, who wants everyone to think they are sisters, and then from Denny Reagan, an older man. He starts teaching her his tricks of the trade and she falls right in line with his crooked ways. Then one night she meets Martin J. 'Mart' Neilson, a tall, handsome, honest farmer boy who's a sailor and they fall in love. While he's away fighting the war, she discovers she's pregnant.

When a teacher reads an essay written by Morgan Evans, one of the boys, moved by his rough poetry she decides to hold classes in her house and believes that Morgan is smart enough to attend Oxford.

Attorney Wayne Fletcher and his secretary have an affair. When Wayne's wife is found smothered to death, he becomes the prime suspect. As the police investigate the murder, a psychic with questionable motives tries to contact the deceased woman. Soon, Wayne begins seeing visions of his dead wife, and other people involved with the case begin to be killed, one by one.

After the King of Rovenia has been assassinated, Holmes and Watson are engaged to escort his son to Europe via Algiers, aboard a transatlantic ocean liner which also carries a number of suspicious persons, any of whom may be involved in a plot to also assassinate him.

After an innocent man is executed in a case he was responsible for, a Scotland Yard superintendent finds himself investigating the murder of his key witness.

Genial shopkeeper Philip has to endure the constant nagging of a shrewish wife while he secretly yearns for a pretty young stenographer. When the henpecking gets to be too much, Philip murders his wife and manages to make her death look like an accident. A ruthless blackmailer and a low-key detective both discover Philip's secret, and he has to decide which of them poses the more dangerous threat.