Hans has killed the dog of Firmin, a shepherd. Wild with rage, Firmin kidnaps Elsi, Hans' fiancée and locks her up at his home. Hans, a peddler, vows to find the missing girl. This is what he does and he manages, with the help of Mânu, the village idiot, to give Elsi a letter. On seeing her, the changeling falls in love at first sight with the young woman. Elsi soon realizes that Mânu can become her instrument of vengeance.
A train driver has not slowed down at a signal and caused an accident whose victim is a gatekeeper. Two inspectors come to investigate the affair. During his interrogation, the driver refuses to provide an explanation for his action and is charged with malpractice. The only one he will tell the truth to is the gatekeeper's wife.
The Paladines write crime novels together. In a cinema, they happen to see a report on the consequences of a shipwreck in which Lieutenant Dupuis tells about the death of an old man in the lifeboat carrying the survivors. Husband and wife agree that this could be the starting point of a new story and go and see Dupuis to get more details about the drama. When they come to his hotel Dupuis is dead with a bullet in his head. Police characterizes the death as suicide but Paladine has found a train ticket in the dead man's pocket. With his wife he takes the train to the specified destination, somewhere in the provinces...
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A colonial wife carries on an affair with a French officer, but the wife's native servant may have overheard their plan to leave Africa and return to Europe together.And then the servant goes missing.
