The story
“A bookkeeper in the employ of a large manufacturing concern lived far beyond his means. He had evil associates, and when his debts became very heavy he determined to pay them at the expense of a fellow worker, the cashier for the same concern. One morning as the young cashier reached the office he received a telephone call, purporting to be from the head of the firm, instructing him to leave at once for a western city. He was told to take a certain envelope from the safe and deliver it to the firm’s representative there. The young man opened the safe, took the envelope and hurried to his home, where he packed the valise and set out for the station. When he started to pass through the train gates he was seized by detectives and charged with robbing his employer. He was searched and the envelope was found to contain part of the stolen funds. No one believed his story about the telephone call, except the girl to whom he was engaged. The young woman was a detective on the New York police force. She determined to prove the cashier’s innocence and secured a position as stenographer with her sweetheart’s firm. The bookkeeper aroused her suspicions. She watched him closely, and when he secretly met a shady character noted for his ability as a safe expert, the girl was sure that she was on the right track. She installed a dictagraph in an adjoining office and one evening when the bookkeeper was working late at the office he was confronted by the safe expert, to whom the girl had sent an anonymous letter intimating that the bookkeeper contemplated fleeing from town. In the quarrel which ensued the full details of the plot of which the cashier had been a victim were revealed. The bookkeeper and his accomplice were sent to prison, while the cashier’s employer, repentant at having misjudged him, soon made him manager of his business, and the girl detective resigned from the department to devote her life to keeping her eye on just one man.”
Summary from The Moving Picture World · 6 December 1913
Another synopsis, from Reel Life · 19 November 19131 min
“When a girl has natural ability as a detective—and, added to this, is in love with the man whose innocence she is bent on proving—she is pretty certain to win out, against all the villains and crooks cornered. Mr. Philip Lonergan has given us a very clever and convincing play in The Problem Love Solved—an interesting detective story with a strong love plot—in which a level-headed young woman entraps a professional safe breaker and the man who has tried to ruin her lover. Billy Marsh is the bookkeeper for Grayson & Co., and Tom Burleigh is cashier for the same firm. One morning the young cashier, on reaching the office, receives a phone call—purporting to be from the head of the company—instructing him to leave at once for a distant city. He is to take an envelope of money from the safe, catch the first train for C—- , and deliver the envelope to the firm’s representative there. He hurries to carry out these orders—and at the train, is seized by two detectives, and accused of having robbed his employer. The only person who believes him innocent is Molly Rand, the girl to whom he is engaged. Molly is the detective service on the New York Police force. The story of how she installs herself in the office of Grayson & Co., how she discovers Billy Marsh’s guilt, exposes him, and wins back the confidence of the firm in her lover—makes a vigorous drama well worth seeing.”
