Professor Nissens seltsamer Tod (1917)

Professor Nissen is a well-known researcher, and his nephew Paul assists him. One day, Nissen is visited by the fiery dancer Lola Fernandez, whom he met during a research trip to the Pampas. Reminiscing about the wonderful time they spent together, she invites the professor to visit her soon at the “Yellow Devil” bar. Nissen goes there with Paul, and both men are fascinated by the Creole woman. The next day, the artist invites them to tea at her apartment. They exchange sweet nothings, and Lola gives the scientist a coral cobra as a gift. However, the invitation served merely to give Nissen’s servant—clearly an accomplice of the Latin American woman—time to search his employer’s desk for certain documents. But he finds nothing. Baron Joe Setter, a fellow student of Nissen’s and also a detective, notices Lola and Nissen’s servant whispering together. This strikes him as very strange, and he begins keeping an eye on her. Meanwhile, the dancer turns on all her charms to win Paul over and thereby get closer to achieving her goal. Together, they attend a gathering at Nissen’s home. On this occasion, the scientist takes a mysterious, Indian-style decorated stick from his safe and tells Lola it once belonged to a dying Indian. When no one is watching, Lola scribbles the following words on a slip of paper: “Stick found, come to the ‘Red Cat’,” and secretly puts the note into Nissen’s servant’s hands. The baron, who has by now learned that Lola has met several times at the “Red Cat” with a man named Castro, known as a swindler, goes undercover to the establishment. By eavesdropping, he learns that the two are planning “a big score” for the following evening. Joe Setter follows the pair, but does not go unnoticed. A doorman they pass tells Setter that the gentleman in question is supposedly Lola’s impresario. Setter is finally astonished to see the supposed impresario transform before his eyes into Nissen’s servant. The servant then takes a letter from Lola asking for money to Paul, while Lola invites Professor Nissen to her apartment. Paul, meanwhile, passionately infatuated with the fiery foreign beauty, asks his uncle for the money Lola supposedly needs. When Nissen refuses, the two have a loud argument. The next morning, Professor Nissen is found dead in his apartment. Paul is arrested as the prime suspect, and Joe Setter, who only learns of the events from the newspaper, is ready to take on the case. While investigating the dead man’s apartment, he finds a handkerchief whose strong perfume he recognizes from Lola. He also comes across Lola’s letter to Paul and a wig. In the reading room, the caretaker discovers the Indian ornament that had been removed from the mysterious stick. Setter puts on a heavy disguise, becoming a disheveled professor, and tries to infiltrate Lola and her accomplice’s circle without being recognized. He puts a newspaper into Lola and Castro’s hands that reports speculation that Nissen was poisoned, then listens to their reaction from the next room. From what he hears, Setter realizes his suspicions are correct. The baron and amateur detective immediately notifies the police. At the station, Joe Setter reads aloud from Professor Nissen’s account of his experiences, which he had found in the professor’s apartment. In it, the dead man also writes about the Creole woman Lola, with whom he apparently spent some pleasant hours. When the scientist helped a gravely ill Indian, the man gave him the mysterious stick as a token of gratitude. Before Joe can finish reading, Lola makes a full confession, because she knows she has lost. This reveals the stick’s true secret, which Professor Nissen never discovered. Hidden inside the stick was a treasure map leading to a silver mine. When Nissen returned to Europe, Lola and Castro followed him to get their hands on this valuable artifact. Castro made himself indispensable as Nissen’s assistant and servant, but used his position every day to search for the stick. To that end, he ransacked Nissen’s house. During one final, unannounced visit to Nissen’s home, Lola, now in possession of the stick, wanted to feed the coral cobra she had given him. Then she heard Nissen coming home and fled without being able to put her “gift” away again. This led to the tragedy: the professor was bitten and died of the snake’s venom.