In the seventeenth century, in Massachusetts, a young woman is forced to wear a scarlet "A" on her dress for bearing a child out of wedlock.
A Capone-like racketeer named Anderson, who after being chased out of one town by the authorities immediately sets up shop in another. Unable to get any tangible evidence against Anderson, DA Wayne orders his assistant Carter to dig up some dirt on the gangster boss. To do this, Carter pretends to turned crooked, joining Anderson's gang in order to accumulate evidence. Alas, Carter's girl friend Patricia knows nothing of her boyfriend's subterfuge, and she suspects the worst.
A nightclub dancer, raised in an orphanage, learns she might be the long-lost heiress to a hair tonic fortune.
