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Rival reporters Curt Devlin and Ellen Garfield are in love but Ellen refuses to marry Devlin until he admits that she is as good a reporter as any man.  He tries to talk Ellen out of covering a prison execution, but she insists on staying to watch.  When she faints in the middle of dictating her article, Devlin dictates his report to her paper at the same time as he is delivering his own.  Both reporters are in trouble when their papers discover the stories are identical.

Their rivalry continues at the scene of an apartment fire.  The police will not allow Ellen to cross the lines, but she overhears a conversation between two men leaving the building.  Remembering a report on the disappearance of Marvin Q. Stone that Devlin had written, she tracks down one of the men, whom the police addressed as Mr. Stone.  She traces Stone to the hospital, then learns he has died of a stab wound and scoops Devlin with the story.

Devlin learns that an unnamed woman was at Stone's apartment the night he was killed and, using the scent of perfume on Stone's jacket collar, identifies her as Inez Cardoza and names the other man as polo player Maitland Coulter, who is also in love with Inez.  Ellen traces Inez through her laundry and forces her to tell her story.  Inez insists that Coulter is innocent and sticks to her story when confronted by the police.

At the trial, the district attorney claims that even though the murder weapon was a knife, the fact that Coulter had a gun showed intent to kill.  While the jury is reaching a verdict, Devlin tricks Ellen into phoning in an incorrect not guilty verdict to her paper, which gets her fired.  Walking into a bar for a drink, she encounters Inez.  Over drinks Inez confesses to murdering Stone.  Ellen scoops Devlin and, when he finally admits that she is a good reporter, she agrees to marry him.