Outwitted

When Rachel Stetherill's daughter marries a man of whom she disapproves, Rachel disowns her. Five years later her daughter, now widowed, is killed. Her young son comes under the influence of a professional safecracker and is soon on his way to becoming a hardened criminal. Twenty yeas later the Stetherill family lawyer learns that the infamous thief known as Ladyfingers bears a striking resemblance to Rachel's husband-and has fallen in love with Enid, Mrs. Stetherill's young ward. Complications ensue.

New York confidence man "Silk" Wilkins ingratiates himself with millionaire Lawrence Gray, knowing Gray’s wife and daughter Zelda were lost in a flood eighteen years earlier. After promising to find Gray's daughter, Silk returns to his boardinghouse, where he finds Alice Sheldon, broke and about to commit suicide. Silk convinces Alice to pose as Zelda Gray and then notifies Lawrence via a note placed in an almond shell that he has found the lost daughter. Lawrence treats Alice so kindly that when Silk demands payment from her on Christmas morning, she refuses. Lawrence, who has overheard the conversation, enters and laughingly reveals that he had known of the frame-up all along. Grateful to Silk for finding him a wife, Lawrence writes the confidence man a large check.

Letty Shell, a clerk in a London brokerage office, is discouraged by her lack of fine clothes and social position. She becomes infatuated with Nevill Letchmere, a debonair idler from a good family, and believes that he wants to marry her, but after her boss, Bernard Mandeville, who has risen to power and wealth, and who wants to marry Letty, warns Letchmere to keep away from her, Letchmere confesses that he is married. Disappointed, Letty accepts Mandeville's proposal, but when she sees Mandeville's boorishness in a restaurant, she returns to Letchmere. Just as she is about to become his mistress, Letchmere receives word that his married sister has eloped with a lover. When he curses his sister for acting like a "shop girl," Letty realizes that he views her and her class without respect. She leaves and accepts the love of her faithful friend Richard Perry, a poor photographer, whose rich uncle is going to help him in business

Alias "the Dancer," fashionable society crook Jimmy Burke is hot on the trail of the Brent diamonds. Upon learning that Molly Brent and her diamonds are the stars of an amateur play, Jimmy obtains the leading man's part and devises a plan to steal the jewels. Molly falls in love with her leading man, who plans to switch the gems with fakes during the performance. After the play, the police question the couple and Molly declares that the robbery was part of the drama. When she discovers Jimmy's deed, she begins to cry and "the Dancer," realizing that he is in love with his victim, renounces his profession.

Shrewd crook Boston Blackie is determined to go straight. At a celebration held on the eve of his marriage to Mary Dawson, Fred the Count plants a stolen jewel and Blackie is arrested and sentenced to twenty years in jail. Fred the Count tries to win Blackie's fiancée, but the honorable Mary rejects him. Blackie's only hope for escape is from the hospital, so he manages to get into a weakened state. He escapes from the hospital, but is trailed by the warden. Blackie refuses to shoot the defenseless man, and the warden recognizes Blackie as an honorable person and allows him to escape. Blackie frames the Count, and leaves for Honolulu with Mary

Anson Campbell returns from the seminary to a small village on the New England coast. When the puritanical villagers persecute Bess Morgan, a "fallen" woman, he sticks up for her, telling them that their form of "Christianity" isn't Christian at all. This has no effect on the bigoted villagers and they turn their anger on him. Complications ensue.

Bill Clayton is known as Broadway Bill because he is the most prominent Bill in the night life of the white way. Muriel loves Bill, but loathes his mode of life, and for her sake he goes to Underwood's lumber camp to work the alcohol out of his system. Hardigan. the foreman, thinks he is sent to spy upon his actions and makes several efforts to get rid of him, but in the end Bill thrashes the foreman, takes his place and wins the girl, though not before a curious chain of cross, purposes.

Larry Winthrop, the pampered son of an aristocratic Boston family, is loved by his wife, Eleanor, but she wants him to prove himself to her as a man.

When spiritualist Madame Mysteria is killed in a train wreck, her three associates decide to replace her instead of declaring her dead. One of them, the Fox, calls on Jean Oliver, who he knew from prison. Jean was serving time after being framed by her former employer, Mrs. Ramsey, for a theft just to keep her and her son, Donald Ramsey, from marrying. Jean agrees to the crooks' scheme providing that they help her kidnap the baby that belongs to Donald and the woman that his mother had him marry.

Young mechanical engineer John Ashton is trying to complete the plans for a new submarine. Under pressure to meet a deadline he has been leaning on whiskey to handle the stress which his friend Robert Gray warns him against, but to no avail. His fiancée, Grace, telephones wanting him to take a break and attend a dinner party with her. Against his better judgement and still drinking he accepts but nods off while getting ready. What follows are booze infused visions of loss and degradation so horrifying that upon awaking he swears off "the devil at his elbow”!

When the United States enters World War I, the widowed Helen worries that she will lose her only son David, who has just turned 21. Although David patriotically urges the employees at his factory to enlist, he reluctantly gives in to his mother's pleas to remain at home with her. When David is drafted, his panic-stricken mother alters the date on his birth certificate, although the later birth date implies that he is illegitimate. Disgusted, David enlists under an assumed name, thus shaming Helen, who confesses her dishonesty to the townspeople. Her son, now in uniform, then forgives her.