Eliot Ness knows that John "The Cropper" Cropsie killed Belle Alpine's husband and that she witnessed it but for reasons of her own, she won't identify him. Cropsie is a small-time hood who wants to get into the big-time and gets a job loan-sharking for Julie Flack. One of his marks tells him that a local company has manufactured 50,000 gallons of industrial alcohol. He manages to steal the precious liquid and tries to sell it to Flack. Ness is onto him quickly and Cropsie has made a serious error in including Belle Alpine's brother-in-law Murray in his plans.

Prohibition has come to an end and bootlegger Frank "The King" Argos has also come to the end of his life. He asks Ness to be the executor of his estate. Ness declines, for obvious reasons. Argos has left everything to his son Charlie, who was declared missing in action at the very end of World War I. When his former minions (Arno Beale and Marcy Devon, played by Christopher Dark and Patricia Owens) find that life without Argos's money is not to their liking, they recruit and train someone to pose as the long-lost Charlie.