AllMovie

Although Baby Marie Osborne was the Shirley Temple of the silent era, there was very little cute kid stuff to be had in this mystery melodrama. Marie lives with her father (Morris Foster) and her Uncle Charles (Jack Connolly), who is blind. Charles handles his business affairs with the use of a Dictaphone, within which he keeps some valuable jewels. Marie finds them and blabs about them to the servants, including the butler, Briggs (Howard Crampton). One day the brothers have a quarrel which becomes physical and the next day Charles is found dead and the jewels turn up missing. Although the rest of the film is taken up with proving the innocence of Marie's father, it doesn't take a genius (or even someone with remotely above-average intelligence) to figure out "the butler did it." The truth is revealed through the Dictaphone -- Briggs fired the fatal shot while Charles was dictating a letter and the machine recorded the action.