The Recommended Vault Deeply Connected to Dark Stairways: Cult Guide

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When the body of Wall Street broker Norman Temple is found dead in his office, the police arrest contractor James Borden for the crime on the testimony of Temple's secretary that Borden had threatened her employer over an unpaid note. Also under suspicion is Temple's Japanese valet, who quarreled with his employer the day before the murder. Tex, a detective, enters the case, following his own leads which prove the valet innocent. Tex finally deduces that Minkin, one of Temple's clerks, shot his employer when he interrupted the clerk robbing his safe. With Tex's revelation, Minkin's room is searched, the stolen bonds found and Borden is freed.

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Laura Bruce is married to John Bruce, police commissioner. She discovers her husband is enjoying a drunken revel with another woman, and vows she will obtain a divorce. After doing so she weds Paul Ramsey. His employer, Dick Turner, a libertine, offers his a responsible position in the west, and she faces a long separation. Ramsey later learns that Turner is interested in his wife and engages a man to protect her, who happens to be her former husband. She finds this out, but does not know he is bent on vengeance. She is inveigled to go to Turner's apartment, where she meets Turner's former "flame." One of them leaves the apartment which is "Room 13." Returning from the West, Ramsey is taken to an adjoining room by Bruce, and listens to a conversation in "Room 13" between a man and a woman. He is convinced it is his wife's voice. Maddened he rushes to the room and batters down the door. He confronts Turner and shoots him. At the trial Ramsey will go free if his wife confesses she was in the room She does and he is acquitted. A reconciliation follows. - Moving Picture World 1920

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Ambitious but struggling attorney John Trask, is puzzled when Christine Lloyd, a mysterious young woman, entrusts him with $30,000 to purchase a necklace that will be delivered to his office the next day. The necklace was stolen by Christine's brother Sydney to pay his gambling debts and Christine, attempting to shield her brother, hires Trask to retrieve it. Trask accepts, and after hiding the money behind a painting, leaves his office for the night. Later that evening, building janitor Annester Norton discovers the money while on his rounds and absconds with it. The next day Aline Norton, the janitor's daughter and an unwitting pawn of the gamblers, appears at Trask's office with the necklace. Discovering that the money is missing, Trask goes to the casino to investigate and miraculously wins $30,000 with which he purchases the necklace. After placing the necklace in Lloyd's hands, Trask is shocked to discover that it is a fake. Entering the gambler's den, Trask retrieves the real necklace, which he restores to its rightful owner. Norton, repenting his theft, returns the money and Trask realizes that he loves the janitor's daughter.

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When Mrs. Chapman Price, the daughter of wealthy socialite Mrs. Janney, quarrels with her husband over her mounting gambling debts, he packs his suitcase and moves out. Desperate to pay off her debts, Mrs. Price rifles her mother's safe but discovers that its contents are missing. The blame points to Chapman Price and Esther Maitland, Mrs. Janney's private secretary. When the Price baby is kidnapped and held for ransom, Esther is suspected of that crime, too. Only Dick Ferguson, a neighbor, believes in Esther's innocence. After several misadventures, Esther discovers that the kidnapping was perpetrated by the detective whom Mrs. Price hired to unravel the burglary, which was committed by Ferguson's servant. Thus cleared, Esther joins the man who believed in her, and the Prices are reconciled.

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A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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At a party thrown at the Metcalf estate, the Marquise D'Irancy's Sultana diamond disappears when the lights go out during a power failure. Suspected of the crime is William Kirkland, the wastrel son of the wealthy Kirkland family, but William's sister Diana comes to his defense. Aiding her in the investigation is Clamp, a wandering peddler. After several misadventures, Clamp reveals that he is a secret service agent on the trail of the international criminals, the de Vallignacs, who are summering at the resort. After proving that the de Vallignacs have stolen the diamond, Clamp arrests his prey, clears William and marries Diana.

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A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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Jim Crosby has shifted for himself since his early childhood. He has become a gangster, feared by all his companions because of his strength. In a fight, which he enters for his sister's sake, he is arrested and sent to jail for a term of months. In the meantime Ann Payton, a society girl, has rented a saloon which she has turned into a mission. She is engaged to be married to Temple Vaughn, her father's young secretary, but decides to wait a year before marrying. The day that Jim is released from prison he gets mixed up in a brawl, and knowing that the police are just waiting a chance to arrest him again, he seeks refuge in the old saloon, a former hangout. Ann takes him in and shelters him from the police. Vaughn has been leading a fast life and has become involved with a woman by the name of Costello and a gambler called Johnson. He loses heavily, and to pay the debt forges a check. Jim, who has been given a position in the bank, recognizes Johnson when he comes to cash the check. He discovers that Vaughn is not able to meet the check, and in lieu of settlement Johnson forces Vaughn to invite a number of his wealthy friends to his house for a game of cards. Jim overhears the two planning the card party and, knowing Ann's love for Vaughn, he decides to get the check and so prevent any further blackmail. At the party Vaughn stands seeing his friends fleeced as long as he can and then accuses Johnson of cheating. Then a figure appears at the door, holding a pistol. He rifles all their pockets, taking the money on the table and the forged check. But in robbing Vaughn, Jim slips in his pocket the forged check. Jim is caught while trying to make his escape and is sentenced to a term in prison. Some time later Vaughn finds in his pocket the forged check and realizes that Jim has committed the crime only to save him. He offers to take all the blame, but Jim will not listen. After his marriage Vaughn again gets connected with Johnson and his mistress. There is a quarrel and Johnson is arrested for running a gambling house. In prison he meets Jim and tells him that the first thing he does upon his release from prison will be to kill Vaughn. Later they are both released on the same day. Jim goes at once to warn Vaughn who arrives a few moments after and who accuses Jim of paying attention to his wife. Jim tries to warn him, but Johnson steps out from behind a screen and shoots him through the heart. In the last scene Jim and Ann are seen together, establishing another mission in the Bowery. It is left to the spectator whether or not Jim will ever succeed in overcoming the great social gap which lies between them.

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Returning from the war front, Captain Phoebe Plunkett accepts an assignment to apprehend jewel smugglers in pursuit of the Sultana diamond. On his mission, he meets Patricia Melton, who introduces herself as a French Secret Service agent also in search of the diamond. Plunkett is in love with Olga Karakoff, daughter of a wealthy jeweler, and he soon comes to suspect that Olga's father is in league with the smugglers. However, Patricia is the true impostor, and after she discovers that the jewel is encased in a locket worn around Olga's neck, she captures Olga and the diamond. Plunkett comes to the rescue and wins both Olga and a large reward for recovering the jewel.

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John Fenton visits a fortune-teller to gain insight into his parentage. While there, a police raid occurs, and he climbs the fire escape to the apartment above. There he finds a girl standing over the body of a young man who has just shot himself. The girl, Belle Charmion, explains that her half brother, Gordon Brewster, had stolen some jewels from their uncle and, fearing that the police would capture him, had attempted suicide. Fenton conceals the brother in another room and impersonates him when the police arrive. Later, he and Belle take Brewster to his uncle's home. In the excitement, the jewels have been forgotten, and Fenton returns to search for them. By this time, the family butler, who is a member of an underworld gang, has tipped off his friends, who then steal the Fenton jewels. At the butler's home, a scuffle ensues; Fenton recovers the jewels and learns that he is actually a distant relative of the Charmions, having been kidnapped in infancy by a crook. With both mysteries thus resolved, Belle and Fenton become engaged.