Dr. Muller, a friend to all, finds pleasure in turning the goodness in people to evil ends. He meets Marie Matin and her fiancée, Georges Roben, while viewing a new painting, "The Martyr--Truth Crucified by Evil." Marie declares that the picture was wrong--evil could never triumph over truth--and though Muller says he agrees with her, he plots to prove otherwise.
Just before his sudden death, a businessman accuses his son-in-law of embezzlement. His daughter is convinced of her fiancée's innocence and tries to clear his name and unmask the real villain and is aided by secret messages…from her dead father. Or are they?
Jack Craigen, an engineer who has just finished a construction job in South Africa, returns to New York. There, at the home of his Uncle Cannell, he meets stage-struck society girl Helen Steele and her playwright fiancé Tracey. Scheming to win the lead in their new production, The Siren , Helen wagers Cannell and Tracey that she can vamp Jack--a notorious woman-hater--and have him propose to her in a week.
Stewart, an art student in the "bohemian" Greenwich Village in New York City, lives next door to his girlfriend Hedda, who wants to be a singer. One night while they are dining at their favorite cafe, a wealthy woman, Mrs. Trask, comes up to them with a proposition: she knows he is an artist and wants to go to Paris in order to study and develop his talent, and she will pay all his expenses to allow him to do that. He refuses because he doesn't want to leave Hedda, but she eventually persuades him to agree. It turns out that she as an ulterior motive for what she's doing--as does Mrs. Trask.
Two Johns, a Confederate and an Union soldier, leave their families to go to the front. After a skirmish they end up separated from their respective sides, the Union soldier shoots the Confederate, but he has to escape and look for refuge in the house of his enemy.
