The policy-racket reaches it lean, bony fingers into the ivy-towers of a large university and the underworld trying to "beat the numbers-racket" with applied mathematics. One of the professors, Tom Barry (Earle Foxe) is murdered in the Dean's office. He had worked out a system that enabled gangster Strike Belno (Buster Crabbe) to beat the numbers-racket and then double-crossed him. This makes Belno a suspect. The professor's wife, Greta Barry (Astrid Allwyn), who is in love with Belno , but doesn't resent the attentions of another professor who is madly in love with her. This provides two more suspects. There is also professor's sister, Nora Barry (Marsha Hunt), who is burned up because he wouldn't give her permission to get married, and her fiance, who never liked the professor anyway, and who has a mean look. Add two more suspects. Add to this is a dozen professors mixed up in some dirty work with the dead man; an elevator boy who slinks unseen from floor to floor, and a mysterious janitor who "hears pistol shots" and the list is complete. Maybe. Enter detective Hank Hyer (Lynne Overman) and newspaper reporter Sim Perkins (Roscoe Karns) aiming to bring order out of chaos. Instead, they get themselves pretty well involved.