Louis B. Foley

A string of valuable pearls provides the motivation for the murder of Wareing, a widowed banker, who intended them for his daughter, Mary. She is comforted by Barton, a criminologist and friend of her late father, who appears to have left his financial affairs in a terrible state. Meanwhile, Mary's fiancé works diligently to identify the murderer. Although the criminologist places the blame on Wareing's butler, a reformed burglar, the killer is finally revealed to be Barton himself.

As a baby, Patsy Smith is kidnapped by her father following a bitter quarrel with her mother. After her father dies at sea, a seafarer named Captain Barnaby places Patsy at Mrs. Duff's boardinghouse. She grows up working as a domestic drudge, deeply unhappy with her life. Inspired by Captain Barnaby's storytelling about Aladdin, Patsy sets out to find an old Oriental lamp that once belonged to her father. She learns that Mrs. Duff sold it to a junk peddler and goes to buy it back. Patsy rubs the lamp, unleashing a Genie. The Genie helps Patsy by providing her with fine clothing, exposing her abusive boardinghouse mistress, and eventually reuniting Patsy with her long-lost mother. With her life transformed, Patsy also finds romance with Harry, a young man who resides at the boardinghouse.

George Anderson, a struggling author, works in the daytime as a clerk in the office of Emmet Standish, the publisher, and at night writes on his novel, "The Mortal Sin."