Plot

Actress Jane Carleson has three admirers: Henry Strong (a millionaire), Hamilton Ross (a chemist), and Murray Campbell (a district attorney). When Jane weds Campbell, Ross writes an anonymous letter to Campbell, warning him that Strong is after his wife. Ross smears the flap of the envelope with poison. However, Strong is the one who opens the envelope, and dies from the poison. Since Campbell and Strong had quarreled just before the arrival of the letter, Campbell is convicted of the murder. Jane must expose the true murderer and save her husband.—scsu1975

Jane Carleson, an actress of note, is loved by three men. Murray Campbell, an assistant district attorney; Hamilton Ross, a noted chemist and criminologist, and Henry Strong, a multi-millionaire. Campbell wins in the suit for her hand. Disheartened. Ross accepts an offer to assist in unraveling a mysterious murder in Moscow, Russia. There he discovers that the victim was killed with fumes from a volatile poison of the east. He is about to make known his discovery when he decides to withhold it and use the same poison to kill Campbell, that he may possess Jane. On his return to New York he finds through careful tests that he can saturate a letter with the poison and thereby bring about the death of whoever reads the letter. Jane and Campbell have been living happily, until Campbell returns home unexpectedly and finds Henry Strong and Jane in a supposedly compromising situation, which they explain away. Ross telephones Jane of his arrival and she invites him to a dinner party to be given her husband. An hour before he leaves for the Campbell home Ross dispatches a letter addressed to Campbell. Jane receives the letter and asks Strong to take it to her husband, who is mixing a cocktail in the dining-room. Jane joins Ross and other guests. Campbell asks Strong to open the letter, which he does and receives the poison intended for Campbell. Strong becomes partially paralyzed and Campbell picks up the letter. It states that Strong has been intimate with Jane. Campbell becomes infuriated and is about to strike Strong when the latter topples over, striking a chair and sustaining a fracture of the skull. A maid, hearing the altercation, and seeing Campbell start to strike Strong, summons a policeman. Campbell is arrested for murder, tried and convicted. Jane learns of the poison that Ross used to kill her husband, and steals incense from which the poisonous vapors arise, and laboratory notes from the Ross apartments. That night she invites Ross to her home, after a spurious confession of love for him. She secretes a police captain and a doctor in her home and tells them she intends to prove her husband's innocence. When Ross arrives she lights the incense in a bowl. It has the same perfume as the poison, but not the deadly effect. Ross tries to escape from the room, but finds all the doors locked. In the madness that overwhelms him, he confesses his guilt and is arrested, while Jane and Campbell are reunited.—Moving Picture World synopsis