Bert Harris, James Cagney, works as a hotel bellboy and is drawn into a web of risk after meeting Anne Roberts, Joan Blondell, a sharp-witted new chambermaid who isn’t shy about bending the rules. The pair schemes a petty scam: they target a married hotel guest, A. Rupert Johnson Jr., Guy Kibbee, by staging a compromising scene with Anne and demanding a clean $5,000 payoff to keep a pretend policeman from hauling him off to jail. The scheme sows seeds of thrill and greed, and the couple cuts town with their pockets a little heavier, already craving something bigger than petty cons. This uneasy alliance begins to hum with the promise of grander schemes.
Across the country, in a larger city, Bert and Anne fall in with Dapper Dan Barker, Louis Calhern, and Helen Wilson, Noel Francis, a duo who thrive on bigger, more dangerous scams. Dan asks Bert to front money for a counterfeit purchase, but once Bert coughs up the cash, Dan and Helen vanish, leaving behind a taunting note that needles Bert’s pride. To recover his stake without admitting defeat, Bert pulls off a jewelry-store heist, stealing a diamond necklace in a bid to salvage his ego and his credibility. Anne discovers the theft and, rather than turning away, tests a new plan: she lures Dan into a horse-racing scam, only to turn the tables and steal from him instead. The game grows feverish, and the thrill of deception begins to eclipse genuine feeling.
As the web tightens, Anne moves closer to Bert on a personal level, but Bert remains largely oblivious to her growing feelings until it matters most. By the time he finally senses that something deeper is at play, Anne has already shifted her affections toward the respectable Joe Reynolds, Ray Milland, and marries him. Bert, craving a cleaner life, wanders Europe for a year, hoping the distance will quiet the taste for crime. Yet the past isn’t easily left behind, and when he returns, the lure of easy money still lurks in the shadows.
Anne tracks him down again, asking for a staggering $30,000. The catch is that Joe Reynolds has himself embezzled that exact amount from his employer, and Bert is suddenly pressed to conjure funds he doesn’t have. He hatches a risky plan: force Joe to reveal the keys to the office and the safe combination, then crack the safe and make it look like he took the bonds as well. But Joe double-crosses him, and the police are waiting as Bert tries to speed away in his car. A gunshots cuts the chase short, and Bert finds himself in custody.
In the cold light of the cell, Anne comes to see him and reveals the full extent of Joe’s treachery. The moment is edged with a bitter defiance, and Bert mutters a line that caps his arc: > "That dirty, double-crossin' rat!" <br>Anne presses on, vowing to wait for him after his sentence, a fragile beacon of loyalty in a landscape built on deceit. The story lingers on the pull of romance amid crime, the costs of ambition, and the uneasy hope that love can outlast the schemes that define a life on the edge.
