On the eve of his one-month wedding anniversary, Gary Ainsworth finds himself tensioned by a blast from the past. He’s married to Geraldine Ainsworth, but his ex-girlfriend, Mabel Essington, has returned with a delicate lever of trouble. Now involved with his business partner, Arthur Weldon, Mabel wants to return a gift Gary gave them during a Mexico City trip and insists on hearing the truth about what happened there. She makes a clear threat: she’ll tell Geraldine everything unless he acknowledges their past romance. The air thickens with the possibility of exposure, and Gary’s nerves begin to fray as the situation spirals.
That same evening, Mabel accompanies the gift, a slip embroidered with a loving message from Gary, as she and Gary ride back to his apartment in a taxi. He tries to distance himself from the memory of that trip, even as Mabel lays down the ultimatum she’s prepared to enforce. She’s determined to make her point, and Gary’s attempt to minimize the baggage only seems to put him in deeper trouble, because the slip becomes the focal point of a dangerous, tangled game between two couples and a secret that could unravel everything.
The scene shifts to a weekend gathering at Arthur’s sister Martha’s home, where the group—along with Alicia and Jimmy Larchmont—tries to keep the peace while the hidden affair simmers. Geraldine begins to sense Gary’s odd behavior and keeps a close watch on him. In a bid to reclaim the slip, Gary enlists the help of the sly waiter and manservant Boris. Boris slips into Mabel’s room to retrieve the cherished token, only to hand it off to Gary, who slips it into his dinner-jacket pocket. Yet fate complicates the scheme when the slip Gary pulls from the pocket proves to be the wrong one, and the real one remains out of reach.
As tension rises, Alicia’s flirtations with Gary intensify the suspicion, and the truth starts to leak. Alicia quickly conveys the secret to Martha, who in turn spreads the word through the house. Mabel discovers that her room has been burgled and confronts Martha, while Gary and Boris launch a second, more daring attempt to recover the correct slip through the window. The bed suddenly becomes a hiding place for three men as the drama unfolds: Mabel, who suspects an intruder, arms herself with a shotgun, and Geraldine, hearing the commotion, spots the unusual visitors lurking under the bed.
The next day brings a surreal moment in the library, where Martha arrives with her maid’s sister’s baby and explains that the slip has been disposed of as a wedding gift to Priscilla. The idea that the slip could affect Gary’s guilt and Geraldine’s trust becomes a source of comic confusion as Arthur’s circle considers the implications. Alicia and Arthur interpret the baby’s presence as a sign of an unspoken liaison, fueling further misreadings as Gary and Boris attempt one final retrieval mission during the wedding ceremony itself. They crash the event, and Boris tries to snatch the slip from Priscilla’s wrist, only to be knocked out by the groom.
As the wedding chaos unfolds, Geraldine appears ready to depart, but Gary returns with the long-sought slip and delivers an explanation of the whole sequence. He candidly reveals the nature of his earlier guilt, and Geraldine’s faith in him begins to return. The tension eases when Geraldine’s mother calls again, but this time the problem feels resolved, and Geraldine no longer feels the need for outside advice. In the end, the tangled web of past mistakes, clever ruses, and close calls is untangled, leaving the couple to move forward with a renewed sense of trust and a story that will live on as a memorable, farcical test of loyalty and honesty.
