Die Tür mit den sieben Schlössern (1962)

Scotland Yard chief Sir John is at a loss. In a very short time, two people who at first seem to have no connection to one another are murdered. Inspector Dick Martin and his assistant Holmes take up the investigation, and make progress only when the crook Pheeny turns up at Martin’s office and tells him a strange story about a door with seven locks that he was supposed to break open for an unknown client. When Pheeny is murdered shortly afterward, all Martin has to go on is a drawing of a family coat of arms that Pheeny left him. A letter is found in the clothing of a priest killed at Victoria Station, instructing its recipient to report to the lawyer Haveloc. Haveloc is the executor of the late Lord Selford’s will. It later emerges that shortly before his death, Lord Selford sent a key to each of seven acquaintances. On the day his son came of age, they were to use the keys to open a door with seven locks in the Selford family crypt, behind which the young Lord Selford’s inheritance was supposedly kept. With the help of librarian Sybil Lansdown, Inspector Martin discovers that Pheeny’s drawing shows the Selford family coat of arms. Martin and his assistant Holmes visit Selford Castle, where they find the former gangster Tom Cawler, known to the police, at the door, and the supposed doctor Dr. Staletti on the estate, who strikes Martin as rather strange from the outset. Back at the office of the solicitor Haveloc, Inspector Martin meets the librarian Sybil Lansdown again and learns that she is the niece of the late Lord Selford. She asks Martin for help: she has received a letter from Lopez Silva, her uncle’s former gardener, announcing his arrival in London and warning Sybil that her life is in danger. But the man from Lisbon is murdered on the plane before he can arrive. His body is found aboard, with a broken chain around his neck—but the key that had been attached to it is missing. While questioning the passengers, Inspector Martin encounters a certain Mr. Cody and his wife, Emily. Cody contradicts himself during the questioning, arousing the inspector’s suspicions. Martin’s old acquaintance Tom Cawler works in the Codys’ house as their butler. It later emerges that he is Emily Cody’s nephew and is working there only as a cover. Emily Cody tricks librarian Sybil into leaving her workplace and getting into a taxi waiting outside. Mr. Cody is already inside, disguised as the driver, and kidnaps Sybil, taking her to the couple’s villa. Locked in an attic room on the Cody estate, Sybil is supposed to write a declaration giving up all her possessions, as well as everything she is due to inherit as Lord Selford’s co-heir. When the hulking giant Giacco attacks, Mr. Cody fights back with a machine gun and accidentally kills his wife Emily, before Giacco strangles him to death. Tom Cawler frees Sybil from the attic room before Giacco can get inside. Sybil and Tom make their way to nearby Selford Castle, where the mad Dr. Staletti takes them to his secret laboratory in the crypt beneath the chapel. Tom Cawler is to become the next human subject in Staletti’s experiments. But that never happens, because the police arrive in time to put a stop to Staletti. Inspector Martin also exposes Haveloc, the true mastermind behind the murders. After taking the seventh key from Haveloc, they find the mysterious door with seven locks and finally manage to open it. Behind it, alongside the inheritance, they find the body of Lord Selford’s murdered young son. His death had been kept secret all along, and Tom Cawler had been sent on trips around the world in his place, posing as the young lord and demanding payment orders for his supposedly extravagant lifestyle. This allowed solicitor Haveloc to keep arranging payouts from the late Lord Selford’s estate to the supposed son.