A Southern teen at a ritzy boarding school gets into mischief while acting the sophisticated grownup to impress a suave gentleman and match wits with a pair of jewel thieves.

After a forward introduces the question of whether women are temperamentally suited for jury duty, Jim O'Neil, a young shipping clerk, is found holding a revolver over his dead employer, Edward Knox. The celebrated novelist Grace Norton, selected to be on the jury at Jim's trial, becomes the first woman juror in New York.