In the final weeks of World War II, a severely wounded man wakes in a U.S. military field hospital with no memory of his identity. He discovers he is George W. Taylor, John Hodiak, a Marine, and among his personal belongings lies an unsigned letter that curses him for an unspecified wrong. Rather than reveal his amnesia, he decides to keep it hidden and set out to uncover his true self.
Back in Los Angeles, a note tucked in his old briefcase points to a bank account opened in his name by a man named Larry Cravat. Taylor follows the trail to a nightclub called The Cellar, where two thugs spot him and a tense pursuit ends with a narrow escape into the dressing room of Christy Smith, Nancy Guild. There, he finds a postcard directed to Christy from a woman named Mary announcing her impending marriage to Cravat, a clue that deepens the mystery surrounding his past.
Taylor makes a second attempt at The Cellar after a bartender hints he might have information about Cravat. He is confronted by Anzelmo, a menacing gangster, Fritz Kortner, who brutalizes him in an interrogation meant to force Cravat’s location. The assault ends with Taylor being deposited at Christy’s apartment, where he asks Christy about Mary. Christy explains that Cravat left Mary at the altar and she later died in a street accident. In a moment of candor, Taylor shares his amnesia with Christy, and she becomes a crucial ally in his struggle to prove who he is.
Christy then introduces Taylor to Mel Phillips, the owner of The Cellar, and Phillips arranges a meeting with the police lieutenant Donald Kendall, Lloyd Nolan. Kendall fills in a decades-old riddle: a defecting Nazi official once sent two million dollars in cash to the United States, hidden in large denomination bills that resisted easy spending. The money’s journey is tangled through a series of hands, and Cravat is accused of stealing the cash and murdering its carrier before vanishing. The police’s interest in Taylor grows as his recent actions reconnect him to the Cravat case.
A note on Christy’s car leads Taylor to Terminal Dock and to a fortune teller who he recognizes as Anzelmo. The fortune teller confirms that Steele, the original money’s carrier, was murdered at the dock and that a dockworker named Michael Conroy witnessed the crime. Conroy dies from a stab wound before naming the third man connected to Cravat. Taylor becomes a person of interest in Conroy’s murder, complicating his search for Cravat and the fortune.
Taylor and Christy push forward, discovering that the money remains intact in a suitcase hidden under Terminal Dock, with clothing bearing Cravat’s name. The truth crashes down: he is Cravat, who, after the Steele murder, assumed a new identity and enlisted in the Marines to stay hidden. He shows the unsigned Mary letter to Christy, who confirms it was written by Mary, cementing Cravat’s broken past. As an unseen assailant fires, the lovers seek refuge in a soup kitchen, where the manager agrees to transfer the suitcase to Kendall for safekeeping. Elizabeth Conroy, Josephine Hutchinson, is tied to the Conroy case, underscoring the web of relationships surrounding the mystery.
Anzelmo forces Taylor and Christy to arrange a meeting with Cravat, but Phillips arrives and confesses the full scheme: he laundered the Nazi money in collaboration with Steele, Cravat learned of the deal, and took the money after pretending to be Phillips. The confrontation reveals that Conroy was murdered to cover the theft, and Phillips had orchestrated the gunman at the dock to shadow Taylor. Kendall appears at the soup kitchen, having watched the proceedings, and shoots Phillips to end the danger. With Phillips hospitalized and facing a full confession, Anzelmo’s gang is arrested, and Taylor’s true identity is out in the open. In the end, Taylor and Christy choose to start a new life together, free from the shadows of a past forged in crime and concealment.
