Thomas Harley, Edward Earle an ex-convict who served time in prison twenty years ago, is wrongfully arrested for a bank robbery he did not commit. The police have found fingerprints at the crime scene, incriminating Harley, even though he was present at the Carey Theatrical Warehouse at the time of the crime. The case looks airtight, and the motive seems clear, but Harley’s plea of innocence is tangled in a web of misdirection and old grudges that Colored his fate in the courtroom.
The authorities state their case with the blunt efficiency of the era, while Harley’s daughter Harley's worried pleas go unanswered. Harley's daughter June Teala Loring begs private investigator Charlie Chan Sidney Toler to help prove her father's innocence. Chan, a calm and observant investigator, senses there is more beneath the surface than a straightforward fingerprint mistake, and he agrees to take the case with a careful plan and a clear sense of justice.
With nine days before Harley's scheduled execution, Chan digs into the suspicious note that supposedly connected Harley to the warehouse. He discovers the note was typed on a typewriter belonging to Mrs. Foss Edna Holland, Harley’s landlady who often rents to ex-cons. To widen the circle, Chan talks to the other tenants in the building: the poor Miss Petrie Janet Shaw, the bookkeeper Mr. Johnson Milton Parsons, the salesman Mr. Danvers Ray Walker, and the showgirl Emily Evans Joyce Compton, whose work costume had been found in the warehouse near the crime scene. Both Danvers and Evans had been in other cities at the times of the bank robberies there, suggesting a broader pattern than a single, isolated incident.
On the way to the prison to see Harley, Chan is attacked: Chan, his son Tommy Chan Benson Fong, and the chauffeur Birmingham Brown Mantan Moreland are shot at. This early violence convinces Chan that they are on the right track and that the fingerprints at the crime scene must have been planted by someone else—not Harley. The investigation uncovers a troubling pattern: the same MO appears in other robberies, and the perpetrators always end up in the same prison, hinting at a larger conspiracy that crosses borders of trust and loyalty.
The deeper truth begins to emerge when Miss Petrie is revealed to be married; her husband is Jimmy Slade, a convict who works in the prison's fingerprint department. The tension escalates as Miss Petrie is run over and killed by a truck outside the warehouse, while Johnson is at the scene when Chan arrives. Chan returns to the prison to inspect the fingerprint department more closely and discovers that someone has been exchanging print cards, tampering with the evidence to cover their tracks.
Miss Petrie’s husband Slade learns of Chan's suspicions and attempts to escape, but is wounded when his gun explodes. Slade dies from those wounds without revealing crucial information, and Chan pushes for fresh prints from everyone living in Harley's building, including Mr. Johnson. The trail leads back to the prison, where Chan discovers that Johnson’s prints are all over one of the print cards in the facility.
Chan returns to the warehouse again and finds the equipment used to forge fingerprints in the truck that ran Petrie over. Danvers is waiting there and confesses that he killed Johnson to stop him from talking, and now he tries to kill Chan as well. Chan outsmarts him and Danvers is arrested for all of the robberies. Harley is finally released from prison, and a final, troubling truth is revealed: George Holmes plays Hugh Kenzie, the true mastermind behind the operation.
In the closing moments, Chan tells Harley the surprising truth about June’s relationship. June’s boyfriend, Hugh Kenzie, was the leader of the robbers and used Harley as a convenient fall guy whenever the plan looked at risk. Harley’s innocence is affirmed, but the case leaves a lasting impression on everyone involved, including June, who must come to terms with the fact that love and loyalty can be tangled in schemes that are far bigger than personal grievances. The resolution emphasizes Chan’s tireless method—careful interviews, cross-checking alibis, and following the physical traces of evidence—to uncover the truth that the official record had obscured.
