A private detective, who has been shot, stumbles into the office of Michael Shayne (Hugh Beaumont), and dies before Shayne can question him. Shayne finds a baggage ticket in his hand. He claims it and finds the checked-bag contains the loot from a robbery. Now, he has about fifty minutes left of the running time to find the crooks, bring them to justice and return the money to the rightful owners. And needs all of it.

Newspaper reporter Tim Rourke keeps writing articles that attack the police department for its failure to solve a chain of murders, which nearly leads to the reporter's death. He calls in private detective Michael Shayne, who turns up a blonde and a blackmailer.

Michael Shayne is a private detective who is disliked greatly by Pete Rafferty, local chief of police detectives. Rafferty notifies the newspaper press that he is going to close Shayne's agency, just as Michael is about to be hired by the wealthy Eleanor Ramsey, who is being blackmailed. She is the stepmother of what she considers to be two grown-up brats, Dorothy and Ernest, and she considers their father to be of little value to the world himself. They all conspire to get their hands on her money, even to the extent of attempting to hire Shayne to frame an insurance robbery. Mrs. Ramsey is murdered, and Rafferty is trying to pin the killing on Shayne, despite the fact that suspicion points to Buell Renslow, brother of the slain woman. Shayne's secretary, the fetching Phyllis Hamilton, decides to do a little detective work to help her boss.

Scotland Yard cop goes undercover to nab counterfeiter and his gang.

Fur thieves, who murder trappers when they refuse to give up their pelts at a low price, occupy the attention of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. The leader of the gang is Victor Renaud, also the mayor of the small Canadian town where the gang is headquartered. Lucky Kerrigan is broken from the mounted service for apparent disobedience to orders, which results in the death of a fellow Mountie. Lucky, working undercover, aids the Mounties in rounding up the gang and gains back his uniform, and also the love of Gabrielle Renaud, Renaud's sister who was unaware of his criminal activities.

Head over heels in love with a stern and cold older businessman's young wife, a reporter is seduced into conspiring to murder him so she can inherit his estate, while pinning the murder on another businessman.

One dark and stormy night, an escaped convict, an embezzler, a runaway daughter, her intended and her father, and a gangster take refuge in a remote inn called "The Black Raven" after the nickname of a second gangster who owns it; and murder ensues.

Crooked mine dealer Scotty McGee lures away gold prospector Tim Kendal's wife, Olga, who married out of gold madness. Kendall gets revenge when he actually strikes gold, then later, as a member of the police force, arrests McGee and Olga as swindlers.

A cowboy is wrongfully accused of murder. He winds up in Harlem, where he assumes the identity of a preacher-turned-gangster who looks like him. He infiltrates the gang to catch the men who framed him.