The version of this Lewis Fitzhamon short is listed as being 13 minutes in length. The copy I looked at was only five minutes long, and had the Huntley Archives watermark on it.
A clerk makes a copy of the office safe's key, clears it out in the dead of night, and leaves the wax impression he used in another clerk's drawer. That clerk is sent to prison. One day on the chain gang, he escapes. Can he clear his name?
I if more than half is missing, this must have been an elaborate movie for 1905. There were fifteen scenes in the version I looked at, and it skipped everything from the innocent man proclaiming his innocence to his escape. That escape, of course, was the cinematic center of the story. Ever since the multi-shot chase had first been shown in 1900, they had been growing steadily more involved, with comedy chase a natural offshoot. Here it's a serious chase, and if the techniques are still stage-like, it would turn out to be an interesting link in the evolution of films.