Burstup Homes, the detective, tries to locate a girl who mysteriously disappears. The girl’s parents, while they suspect that she has eloped, still, in order to avoid a scandal, keep the matter quiet and rely on the ingenuity and resourcefulness of Burstup. Naturally the bum detective follows many wrong clues. The girl’s powder and puff leads him in the wrong trail and into a bag of flour. Many other ludicrous accidents happen to him until he finally discovers the girl’s and her lover’s hiding place. In order to get to her, however, he has to contend with a big gang. He reduces them to submission by means of hypnotism; but before he gets away something happens and breaks his hypnotic spell, and he is temporarily defeated. His hour of triumph comes later when he has himself smuggled into the gang’s den enclosed in a life-sized frame. With one shot he kills the whole outfit, and carries off the missing heiress,