In Sidlaw city, there are two criminal outfits. South Law and the Sidlaw Syndicate. A young pyromaniac called Algernon Dearly has proven himself as a murderer, and joins the Sidlaw Syndicate. Others in the two mobs are scheming to create one syndicate in the city, and are prepared to kill their own leaders to bring about the merger. The merger is destined ultimately to fail, when the two mobs clash, in a winner takes all battle. Algernon is distracted by being committed to a psychiatric hospital. He needs to escape to help his outfit, and to pursue his love of Patsy, a tennis player he believes is his dead sister Angela. This is of interest to a policeman, Hal Gow, who was also a patient, committed after failing to cope with the death of his fiancee. She was killed in the fire Angela started, and in which she also died, supposedly.