millionaire paul radin invites three people to the bomb shelter that he has built. he greets them politely but without genuine warmth as he holds a personal grudge against each of them. one is a high school teacher (mrs. langsford) who failed him when he was caught cheating on a test and attempting to frame another student to avoid the consequences; the second is colonel hawthorne, who had him court-martialed when radin endangered lives by disobeying orders; and the third is rev. hughes, who made a public scandal out of a woman who committed suicide over him.