Micky, a boy of the tenements, discovers a strange pigeon in his coop atop the ugly tenement where he lives. Attached to its leg by a string is a valuable diamond ring. Micky takes the bird to the police station. Grant, police reporter on the Chronicle, is there to pick up a story. He writes a note requesting audience with the owner of the bird, ties the note to its leg and sets it free. Meanwhile Natalie, Mrs. Grandon Rice's French maid, has rifled her employer's wall safe, using a stethoscope to determine the fall of the tumblers. We see Natalie go to her room and take a carrier pigeon from the lower compartment of her washstand. Around its neck she places the pendant and chain and sets it free up a flue hole. She is searched and questioned about the robbery but there being no evidence she cannot be held. Daddy Greelick, a notorious "fence," shows up at the appointed meeting place in answer to the blind message carried by the pigeon earlier in the day. When he makes a getaway, Grant hurries to the "fence's" pawnshop and finding it locked mounts to the roof by the most convenient way, a rear fire escape. He and Greelick have a desperate fight on the roof and Grant is left senseless. When he recovers he slides down a rope to an adjoining building just in time to help capture the crook who had locked all doors behind him as he fled.
—Moving Picture World synopsis