Vanity

Robert Armstrong, falsely accused of a murder committed thirty years ago in a western gambling hall, faces the alternative of imprisonment or paying blackmail. A letter from Tom Mason, formerly a miner, prepares him for a visit, at which time he must make his choice. Armstrong confides in his son, Dick, assuring him that the murder was committed by Mason, who used trickery to make it seem that he (Armstrong) was the culprit. Dick broods over the injustice to his father, and Armstrong cannot conceal his nervousness. The visitor comes and makes his demands. Armstrong grapples with him as the lights are turned off. Suddenly there is a shot, and when the lights are turned on again Mason is lying dead on the floor. Fearing the servants will enter, Dick drags the body through a window to the grounds outside, takes Mason's pistol out of his pocket, fires a shot into the body and places the weapon in the dead man's hand. Dick returns to the house and a policeman hurries to the scene. Dick thinks he has covered up his tracks, but Burke, chief of detectives finds the other bullet in the body and has no difficulty in connecting the murder with the Armstrong family. He does not succeed in getting a confession from either father or son, and decides to resort to strategy. Phyllis Lord is a model in Martel's establishment for women's apparel. The discrepancy between the gowns she wears to display to customers and her own modest raiment eats into the girl's consciousness. Then, too, she is befriending Bessie Allen, a young wife who has been deserted by her husband, and finds herself unable to help Bessie as she would like. A wealthy woman who is buying gowns boasts of having won five hundred dollars at Crandell's, a fashionable gambling resort, on a five dollar wager. Phyllis obtains a card of admission to Crandell's, without permission borrows one of Martel's gowns, and visits the gambling house. She loses the money she has brought and fifty dollars more which Crandell loans her. Burke, who has been watching the girl, has Phyllis dismissed from Martel's, making it appear that she has stolen money, and she is placed in such a position that she is obliged to accept Burke's offer to help him with a case. She consents to get a confession from Dick Armstrong. She is installed in a handsome apartment and given beautiful clothes. Bessie Allen, who is ill, is taken to a hospital. Burke puts a dictaphone into Phyllis's apartment. The pre-arranged courtship progresses favorably. D