Paying off a blackmail case for a famous professor's daughter, private eye Clarence Thans becomes ensnared in a web of danger and deceit. Discovering the professor kidnapped, Thans remains stoically unaware of his own imminent demise. Staying with the case despite his better judgment, the sleuth unearths a valuable patent and meets the professor's mistress and a snoopy landlord (Conrad Brooks, Plan 9 from Outer Space), while crossing paths with two rival gangs of thugs, each ample of motive and desire to finish Thans. When not gruffly warning Thans beside tossing suspicions, cops arrive a second or two too late to offer any help. No one is as appears and everyone has a stake. For the detective, the lure of the buck and the desire to stay alive always walk a tightrope wire. News of the professor's death erupts a final fight in a snowy hideaway over fate of the patent and those still in doomed pursuit.