London 1875. Derby Day, and a group of men gather at a London inn following a day at the races. Wilfred Denver has lost a lot of money and is drowning his sorrows. Corkett, manservant to Geoffrey Ware, arrives and flaunts his winnings. Ware tells Denver he was once engaged to Denver's wife. Denver drunkenly threatens to kill him. Two other men plan a robbery and contrive to steal Corkett's winnings, blackmailing him into letting them into Ware's house, which is next to the house they plan to rob.

Shortly after the burglars arrive at Ware's house Denver turns up to carry out his threat. They let him in but overpower him. Ware returns home unexpectedly and when he tries to call for help one of the burglars shoots him with Denver's gun. They depart, leaving the gun in the hand of the unconscious Denver. On waking, Denver thinks he must have shot Ware. He returns home to his wife before catching a train to Liverpool.

Denver wakes from a nightmare in an inn, and a chambermaid reads to him from an evening newspaper report about the crash of the Euston to Liverpool express. Denver is believed to be among the dead.

Ten years later a wealthy Denver returns from America. He enters the same London inn, where one of the burglars is now the landlord. Unrecognised, Denver goes to the house where his wife and daughter live in poverty and discovers they haven't received the money he's been sending them. He reveals himself to their old servant, telling him he's now rich from money made in silver mines in Nevada. Living under the alias of John Franklyn, he's now known as 'the silver king'.

Denver pursues the landlord, who he recognises from the night of the murder, and overhears Corkett threatening to turn Spider, the real murderer, over to the police unless they give him a share of the jewels they've stolen. Denver and his wife are reunited. Spider arrives with a proposition designed to keep Denver quiet, but he refuses to go along with it. A police detective arrives and arrests Spider following the confession of his associates. Denver is exonerated.