This article: Defense lawyer Stephen Ashe successfully defends known gangster Ace Wilfong from a murder charge, despite his knowledge of Ace's other illegal activities. His upper-class family has all but disowned him and his daughter Jan, due to Stephen's alcoholism and Jan's free spirited willfulness. Jan is engaged to clean-cut Dwight Winthrop, but their relationship is threatened when she meets Ace and becomes enamored with him and his exciting life.
As Stephen continues to slip deeper into alcoholism, Jan breaks her engagement with Dwight and begins a clandestine affair with Ace, which grows into love. This comes to a head when Ace asks a drunken Stephen if he can marry Jan; Stephen, offended by the request, angrily refuses, and when he discovers Jan in Ace's boudoir, takes her home. They have an argument over their respective vices, and Jan proposes a deal: she will never see Ace again if Stephen will give up drinking. Despite knowing he cannot keep his promise, Stephen agrees, and the two of them leave for a cleansing camping holiday, along with Stephen's fiercely loyal assistant Eddie.
After three months of sobriety, Stephen buys a bottle of liquor and boards a train for an unknown destination. Jan returns home to find her family has cut her off; feeling despondent, she visits Ace. He reacts angrily and possessively to her return and informs her that they will be married the next day. Jan slowly realizes what sort of man he really is, and sneaks away. Ace follows her to her apartment and, after a brief confrontation involving Eddie and Dwight, threatens Jan that she cannot get out of marrying him, and that if she marries Dwight he (Ace) will make sure Dwight is killed. contains an answer for the question: Whose assistant joins Jan's ex-fiance to confront a gangster?, what is it ?


Stephen's