When New Orleans coffee merchant Louis Durand first meets his bride-to-be after a months-long courtship by mail, he's shocked that she doesn't match the photographs sent with her correspondence. But Durand has told his own fibs, concealing from her the details of his wealth, and so he mostly feels fortunate to find her so much more beautiful than expected. Soon after they marry, however, he becomes increasingly convinced that the woman in his life...

As a photographer with a broken leg, Stewart takes up the fine art of spying on his Greenwich Village neighbors during a summer heat wave. Things really begin to get hot when he suspects a salesman may have murdered his nagging wife and buried the body in a flower garden. He actively enlists the help of his girlfriend to investigate the highly suspicious chain of events. Events that ultimately lead to one of the most memorable and gripping endings...