A train driver has not slowed down at a signal and caused an accident whose victim is a gatekeeper. Two inspectors come to investigate the affair. During his interrogation, the driver refuses to provide an explanation for his action and is charged with malpractice. The only one he will tell the truth to is the gatekeeper's wife.
It's a sailors' story; they often sail away and when they return, the first thing they do is searching girls in the harbor. One of them -Jean- is shy and he does not know how to go with women. One day, he meets Yvonne and falls in love with her. But, alas, she prefers his good friend René. Another suitor, Pierre, owns the "À la Belle frégate" a café where Yvonne works as a waitress. Madam(e )Juliette, pretends she helps Yvonne and tries to make her an "entraineuse"(hostess) for less-than -handsome guests. But the girl knows better and will choose one of her suitors.
The Paladines write crime novels together. In a cinema, they happen to see a report on the consequences of a shipwreck in which Lieutenant Dupuis tells about the death of an old man in the lifeboat carrying the survivors. Husband and wife agree that this could be the starting point of a new story and go and see Dupuis to get more details about the drama. When they come to his hotel Dupuis is dead with a bullet in his head. Police characterizes the death as suicide but Paladine has found a train ticket in the dead man's pocket. With his wife he takes the train to the specified destination, somewhere in the provinces...
Hans has killed the dog of Firmin, a shepherd. Wild with rage, Firmin kidnaps Elsi, Hans' fiancée and locks her up at his home. Hans, a peddler, vows to find the missing girl. This is what he does and he manages, with the help of Mânu, the village idiot, to give Elsi a letter. On seeing her, the changeling falls in love at first sight with the young woman. Elsi soon realizes that Mânu can become her instrument of vengeance.