William Bendix is the small town sheriff who resists the attempts of an insurance investigator to get to the bottom of an apparent suicide. Dennis O'Keefe, as the investigator, doesn't believe it was a simple case of suicide especially since the dead man was universally hated by the close-knit community, and heavily insured. In this classic suspense tale the much-loved town doctor, who really did kill the heel, has died of a heart attack. Since the 'doc' was the town hero, they'd rather preserve his good name and let sleeping dogs lie. But O'Keefe's got a job to do, and the town, led by the laconic sheriff, thwarts his attempts to arrive at justice, or at least a neat summing-up for his insurance bosses. The outsider's only breach of the town's clannish wall of silence comes when he falls in love with the town belle, played by Barbara Britton. The film is a careful study of us-against-them small-town prejudices, neatly held together by Alfred Green's direction and ably depicted in the cinematography of Ernest Laszlo.