Doctor Blood’s Coffin

Strange crimes sweep Cornwall: surgeries burgled and people disappear. The stolen medical supplies are used to outfit a laboratory in the disused Porthcarron Tin Mine, and the missing are immobilised with a drug before being taken there.

Young Dr. Peter Blood arrives back from Vienna, where he was involved in a controversial research project. He is a native of Porthcarron, and his father Robert works as the village doctor, with Linda Parker assisting him.

Police Sergeant Cook begins scrutinising the crimes and the disappearances. He starts to suspect a link between the mine, the missing people, and the recent burglaries.

Peter eagerly offers to search the tin mines for the latest missing man, George Beale. His real motive is to keep the mine lab hidden and to shield himself from discovery.

Peter locates Beale slowly crawling inside the mine but cannot prevent him from escaping while Sgt. Cook is nearby. Beale drags himself outside, and Peter is called to render medical assistance.

Peter injects Beale with an unknown drug and pronounces him dead, offering to perform the post-mortem. This marks Peter’s first step in concealing the crimes and the hidden lab.

Robert cannot analyse a broken syringe found in Beale's room and takes it to Plymouth Hospital for a full analysis. Linda discovers a curious clay container, which Peter claims is an ancient curare container from a schoolmate.

Beale's PM is to be performed at Morton's mortuary, but Beale is not dead, and Peter begins to remove his living heart. Morton interrupts, and in the struggle Peter accidentally kills Morton, and Beale’s heart dies as well.

Peter tells Linda that he would transplant the living hearts of wastrels into the bodies of those who deserve to live, such as great scientists and philosophers. Linda argues that only God has the right to decide life or death, while Peter insists otherwise.

Peter takes Linda to the tin mines where he recounts a boyhood game of pretending to be dead and coming back to life. Tin miner Tregaye appears and soon becomes Peter’s latest victim.

Beale’s funeral proceeds, and Peter notices Linda gazing at Steve Parker's grave. Linda’s suspicions about Peter deepen as she senses something is wrong between him and the town’s recent events.

Sgt. Cook and Robert realise Peter is behind the crimes. Peter digs up a corpse, transports it to his lab, and transplants Tregaye’s beating heart into Steve Parker’s body, turning Steve into a reanimated, decomposed figure. In the final confrontation, Steve kills Peter and dies again, while Linda escapes to join the search party on the shoreline.