Satan Met a Lady 1936

Private detective Ted Shane returns to work with his former partner Milton Ames, who is not particularly happy about the situation because his wife Astrid Ames dated Ted before they were wed.

Valerie Purvis hires the detectives to locate a man called Farrow, Sol Gorss. When Ames and Farrow are found dead, Ted Shane is suspected of both murders. The case immediately throws Shane into a maze of suspicion and danger, as the clock ticks and every new lead seems to pull him deeper into a tangle of conflicting interests.

Shane discovers his office and apartment have been ransacked, and his secretary Marie Wilson Miss Murgatroyd has been locked in a closet by Arthur Treacher, who is in search of an 8th-century ram’s horn rumored to be filled with jewels. The tension rises as the clues point in multiple directions, and the identity of the horn’s owner remains obscured by shifting allegiances and hidden motives. In a parallel thread, Alison Skipworth portrays Madame Barabbas, who is also hunting the treasure and sends a gunman to bring Shane to her, adding another dangerous variable to the ever-growing conspiracy.

Madame Barabbas’s pursuit intersects with Shane’s own scramble for answers as he works all sides of the street, trying to outflank the others. He negotiates with each party, hoping to uncover the horn’s location, and his scheming eventually yields a package that seems to contain the coveted relic. The package, however, turns out to be nothing more than sand, a cruel decoy that leaves the investigators and suspects staring at a falsified clue and a trail that goes cold just when they thought they were closest to the truth.

As the net tightens, the police round up all the suspects, and Shane and Valerie manage a narrow escape from capture. The game reaches a delicate stalemate, and Shane attempts to pressure Valerie Purvis into confessing to Ames’s murder by offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward as leverage. But Valerie sees through the trap and instead has a washroom attendant turn her in to the authorities, turning the tables on Shane just when it seems she might be cornered. In a final twist, Miss Murgatroyd appears again, closing the loop in a way no one expected and claiming Shane for her own, leaving the truth of the horn’s treasure and the murders momentarily unresolved and shrouded in the film’s signature noir mood.