Kit Kittredge, a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper reporter, returns to the United States in mid-1941 after serving as Moscow’s correspondent, only to be fired by his editor, Mason, for failing to report that Germany has invaded Russia. He heads to Washington, D.C. to see his girlfriend, Christina Hill, a stenographer at another newspaper, and is soon drawn into a dangerous scoop. Their uneasy reunion is interrupted when a Romanian informant, Gregory Vanescu, promises a big story but is struck by Nazi spies before he can reveal it and disappears into hiding. This ominous development sets the stage for a tense web of espionage that will pull Kit, Christina, and their circle into a high-stakes chase through the nation’s capital.
As the danger mounts, Vanescu dispatches a message directing Christina to meet at the Lincoln Memorial at midnight, carrying a red purse and a green umbrella. Kit enlists Christina’s roommate, Sally Branch, to collect the required items and rendezvous with them. A mix-up in the parking lot leads Kit to drive Christina to the wrong landmark—the Washington Monument—creating further confusion. Sally arrives at the meeting point and is taken to Vanescu, who finds in her shorthand a quick wit and a valuable transcription of his plans. The spy outlines a network of saboteurs from Germany, Italy, and Japan who intend to unleash terror on the city, and Sally dutifully records every detail. Just as the exchange ends, Nazi agents strike, grab Sally’s notebook, and vanish. Realizing they’ve misidentified Sally, Kit and Christina rush back to Sally’s place, where Sally’s roommates and her Marine boyfriend, Red, join them in waiting for updates.
When Sally returns with more information, Vanescu’s organization onward seems to be escaping their grasp. Yet the Nazis quickly realize they can’t parse Sally’s unique shorthand, prompting them to descend on Sally’s apartment to abduct her again. Christina urges calling the FBI, but Kit, intent on preserving his scoop and his job, pretends to make a call and presses on with the investigation. He tracks Vanescu to a nightclub, where a gypsy woman guides him to a private upper-floor room. There, two spies—Olga and Otto Fauscheim—await. Olga, posing as Vanescu’s wife, urges Kit to help locate Vanescu’s missing associate, using tactics designed to intimidate him. Kit is lured into a frightening path: a decoy hideaway with a delusional Civil War veteran, where he somehow discovers Vanescu’s dead body instead of the missing informant.
Otto’s plan tightens its grip on Kit. He drugs Kit with a doped cigarette and, under the influence, coerces him into marrying one of the showgirls, Gloria the Glow Girl. Christina immediately understands that Kit has been set up, and she sees through the deception—she notices a handkerchief scented with Olga’s perfume on Kit’s person and begins tracing its origin. The perfume leads to a beauty salon next to the flower shop where Kit was headed after vanishing. Christina suspects the salon’s owner of collaborating with the spy ring, and the salon is revealed to be run by Olga. During a tense confrontation, Kit is briefly held hostage in a back room but manages to free himself and eavesdrops on Axis agents discussing their plan to detonate an attack on the city in a showroom.
The chase culminates in a dramatic showdown. Kit and Christina rally Sally’s roommates, a group of photographers, and a team of federal agents (the g-men) as they storm the salon. A fierce confrontation ensues, and the spy ring is defeated just as the authorities arrive. In the aftermath, Christina and Kit share a kiss, their partnership—and their chance for a new Pulitzer Prize—secured by the sensational scoop they’ve secured and the courage they’ve shown together. The city’s danger has passed, but the memory of the intrigue—and the possibility of another major journalistic achievement—lingers as the film closes.
