Larry Darrant, the black sheep of his family, returns home to London from an unsuccessful business venture in
Kenya and embarks on an affair with a married woman, Wanda. When Wanda's long-absent Russian husband Henry appears, he tries to extort money from the couple and threatens Larry at knifepoint when he refuses to pay. In the ensuing fight, Henry is accidentally killed when he strikes his head. Larry places Henry's body in a quiet brick archway. He then visits his brother Keith, a successful
barrister hoping to soon become a judge, for advice. Keith tells Larry to leave the country for a while to avoid capture. Keith's motivation is partly to avoid the damage that Larry's arrest would do to his own career. However, Larry refuses to leave and returns to the alley where he had left the body. There he encounters John Evan, a former minister turned tramp, who collects a pair of bloody gloves that Larry has dropped in the street. When Evan is found with the gloves, he is arrested for Wallen's murder, and the police believe that they have sufficient evidence for a conviction. Evan is so remorseful for robbing the dead body of a ring that he insists on his guilt. When Larry learns of Evan's arrest, he considers himself a temporarily free man and decides to marry Wanda. Larry and Wanda try to compress 30 years of idyllic life into the course of just 21 days, as Larry plans to turn himself in to the police before Evan's trial begins. On the day when Evan is sentenced to hang, Keith begs his brother to remain silent and let the condemned man die. Larry, set on doing the right thing, refuses and leaves for the police station. He is stopped on the steps of the station by Wanda, chasing after him, who has learned that Evan died from a heart attack on his way to jail. ==Cast==