Jan Manning is having serious financial problems. She runs a dress shop but sales are down and she doesn't have her late husband's knack at purchasing, the end result being that she has too much inventory. One of her suppliers, Mel Reeves, has a solution: he needs only to hire someone to break in to the shop through the skylight and set it on fire allowing Jan to collect on her insurance policy. But when the shop burns down, Jan tells the insurance investigator what happened, only to be told that no one broke into the shop but that she is nonetheless responsible for setting the fire herself.