Two days before Christmas, a bogus insurance investigator Gore Hepburn, portrayed by André Morell, brazenly targets a bank and draws the staff into a tense, high-stakes game. The bank’s manager, Harry Fordyce, a cold, officious man, becomes the prime target when Hepburn reads the insecurities that underlie Fordyce’s stiff demeanor and uses them to manipulate him into a deadly scheme.
Fordyce, under the pressure of threats and the lure of fear for his family’s safety, helps Hepburn steal £93,000 in banknotes from the vault while trying to keep his actions hidden from the rest of the staff. The con is complicated by a precautionary phone call to Hepburn’s supposed insurance company, which quickly reveals that Hepburn is an impostor with a criminal past. As the danger grows, Fordyce’s desperation deepens, especially when he learns that the police are approaching.
When the police arrive, Fordyce persuades Pearson, a bank staffer, to cover for him and to dismiss the staff’s earlier contact with the authorities as a misguided “misplaced cheque.” The situation tightens as the police arrest Hepburn, who carries a case containing the bank’s money and who is not his real name but a known criminal. The investigators begin to suspect that Fordyce must have had inside help with the robbery, a possibility that haunts him as the net tightens.
A rapid review confirms that Fordyce’s family was never actually in danger. He tries to convince the police that he was manipulated by the colonel, demonstrating by ordering him at one point to stand by the window and mop his brow, signaling a supposed associate outside. As he performs this for the officers, a sealed bank package of £500—slipped into his pocket earlier by Hepburn—drops to the floor, further entangling the truth with doubt.
Despite the mounting evidence, Fordyce is eventually cleared, and the police release him. With his wife and son safe, he shifts his view of his coworkers, recognizing that their help—whether they realized it or not—was aimed at saving him from ruin. He heads to the police station with his colleagues to confront Hepburn and to reunite with his family, feeling relief but tempered by the ordeal.
In a quiet, almost resigned moment, Fordyce asks Pearson to manage the bank in his absence, promising he will return within a few hours and join them at the staff Christmas party. The tension of the con lingers in the air, but the balance tips toward a cautious hope as the ordeal concludes and life at the bank looks toward a quieter, more professional future.
