Recently released from prison, Arthur Payne meets a benevolent stranger on a train who says he may be able to help him. A few days later, a second stranger arrives at Payne's houseboat, and Payne reluctantly agrees to carry out a no-risk jewel theft for a fee. When the staged burglary turns to murder, Payne realises he's been set up and he goes on the run. All the evidence points towards Payne being the murderer, but one irrefutable fact troubles Inspector Jackson.

An up-and-coming politician is caught in a compromising photograph taken by a maid, who turns out to be part of a sophisticated blackmail ring. When the girl is found murdered, he holds an incriminating old dueling pistol.

A team of gangsters hide out in a late-night pharmacy to await a drugs transaction, little realising one of their hostages is not all they seem.

Model prisoner Frank Stewart, convicted for burgulary, escapes from prison with the help of Jock Mackay, an associates for his boss Wally Lucas, who plans to track down Stewart to know the location of stolen bonds.

Dino Steffano is charged with fraud and set to stand trial, rather than face imprisonment, he feels his best option is to nobble The Prosecuting Barrister.

Solicitor Alan Phipps formulates a plan to blackmail his wealthy and unfaithful wife, Yvonne, and at the same time, get revenge against her boyfriend, John Brodie, by setting him up to appear that he is the blackmailer and for Yvonne to kill him. But Brodie, anticipating this predictament, has a hidden agenda behind all this to get the last laugh at Phipps.

A man who has been left for dead by the impostor who takes his place returns to bring him to justice.

A pair of hoodlums steal a car in which there is a ransom letter directed to a wealthy man whose daughter has just been kidnapped.

A CID detective is lured into a plot by girl who first pretends to fall in love with him, then that she's been killed and is now actually a heretofore unknown twin sister, and ultimately a murderous betrayal.