Angry, because he is making too many headlines with his gang-busting activities, the police chief transfers Lt. Lewis Nagel to the sleepy suburban town of Fairview, where he is followed by reporter Steve Withers because he knows Nagel will find a story. Jeane Sandford arrives in town to visit her aunt, Muffin Wilder, wearing a necklace given to her by an eccentric uncle who has been dead for a year and whose will is scheduled to be read on the anniversary of his death. Steve falls for Jeane and, as a joke, steals her necklace. Enroute to replace the necklace, Steve discovers his pocket has been picked, and the intrigued Nagel decides the necklace has some significance in the Sandford family affairs, so he and Steve attend the reading in the old deserted family mansion. The will reads that all of the family except Jeane has been cut off without a penny and that the necklace contains the information necessary to uncovering the inheritance secreted in the old house. The attorney, clutching part of the necklace, and the jeweler who made it are murdered before Nagel solves the case, in which each family member is a suspect at one time or another.