In the shadows of the night Dudley Wolff, his secretary Alfred Dunning, and his doctor, Haggard, bury a body in the estate cemetery. At the house, Wolff's daughter Catherine arrives unexpectedly and tells her step-mother Anne Wolff that she has just been married to Roger Blake who will be along in a few days. Cathy retires and is awakened by a mysterious assailant who fires a shot at her, but her parents tell her she was just dreaming. Wolff goes to the cemetery and finds the body missing. The scared Cathy calls in fast-talking private detective Mike Shayne and, since her father doesn't like detectives, she introduces him as her husband. That evening Shayne hears a shot and finds that Haggard has been killed. While the police are questioning the family, the lights go out and a shot is fired from outside.