Gloria Wandrous, a promiscuous fashion model, falls in love with Weston Liggett, the hard drinking son of a working class family who has married into money.

A troubled arsonist spins a tale of espionage to a captivating girl, who becomes enthralled and entangled in his dangerous fantasies, leading to unexpected murder and chaos that change their lives forever.

The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.

The story revolves around the efforts of the middle-class family Fairweather, newly impoverished by the financial panic, to survive against the villainous banker Gideon Bloodgood.

At Marks Priory, Lady Lebanon is eager for her son, Lord William Lebanon, to marry Isla Crane, his cousin. But Isla is reluctant to do so, and is also frightened by the two footmen of the household who she suspects of locking her in her room at night. Following a village dance, the household's chauffeur is found strangled with an Indian scarf.