A struggling writer is so deep in debt that he believes he'll never be able to get out of it, and is being hounded by creditors. One night during a storm he comes upon the body of a man who has been crushed by a falling tree. He sees this is an opportunity to start his life over again, and exchanges identities with the dead man. However, things don't turn out quite the way he planned--it is discovered out that the dead man wasn't crushed to death by the tree but had been murdered first, then placed there, and he is now the chief suspect in his own murder.