Secrets of the Night

In an audacious bid to forestall the inevitable scrutiny of bank examiner Alfred Austin, the desperate financier Robert Andrews orchestrates a theatrical deception of the highest order: his own simulated assassination during a lavish, high-stakes gala. This macabre performance serves as a desperate smoke screen for his institution’s precarious ledgers, instantly transforming a social gathering into a claustrophobic crime scene teeming with legitimate grievances and manufactured dread. Suspicion immediately falls upon Hammond, a young man whose romantic aspirations toward Andrews’ ward, Anne Maynard, provide a convenient, if superficial, motive for the authorities. Simultaneously, the narrative threads tighten around Lester Knowles, whose simmering resentment regarding Andrews’ perceived intimacy with Mrs. Knowles paints him as a prime candidate for a crime of passion. As the evening descends into a cacophony of slapstick chaos and genuine peril, the film masterfully balances the tension of a whodunit with the frantic energy of a bedroom farce. The resolution arrives not through forensic triumph, but through the sudden, almost miraculous reappearance of Andrews himself, coinciding with the news that a previously doubted debtor, Joshua Brown, has liquidated a massive loan. This financial salvation renders the examiner’s audit moot, leading to a whimsical conclusion where the auditor pivots to the burgeoning real estate market, and Andrews finally discards his masks of deceit to declare his genuine affection for Anne.