The House on Carroll Street

Emily Crane was fired from Life magazine after refusing to cooperate with the 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). She refused to name her colleagues who were suspected of communist sympathies, which effectively ended her journalism career and left her seeking alternative employment.

Stefan was a German-speaking man who served as an interpreter during a confrontation between Senator Salwen and an elderly German man in a neighboring house. He was killed by a knife-wielding assassin because he possessed a list of four names linking the Nazi smuggling operation. His murder was ordered to prevent him from revealing the conspiracy to Emily.

Emily had asked Stefan for directions earlier, establishing a connection that would later become significant.

The list of four names found in Stefan's pocket identified the Nazi war criminals being smuggled into the United States. One of those names was Teperson, who Emily later discovered was actually a former Auschwitz physician who performed deadly experiments on prisoners. The list served as evidence of the smuggling operation.

Teperson was one of the four names on Stefan's list. At the wedding reception, Emily discovered that the man calling himself Teperson was actually a Nazi war criminal who had been a physician at Auschwitz, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners. He was using a false identity to enter the United States as part of the smuggling operation.

The Nazi war criminals were being smuggled into the United States to participate in top-secret anti-Soviet scientific programs during the Cold War. Government officials, including Senator Salwen, were facilitating their entry because they believed the ex-Nazis' expertise could help America in the emerging conflict with the Soviet Union.

Senator Ray Salwen was the main prosecutor for the HUAC committee and the mastermind behind the Nazi smuggling operation. He orchestrated the cover-up and used his political influence to ensure the war criminals could enter the country under false names and take positions in secret government programs. He also ordered the assassinations and the bomb plot to silence Emily.

Salwen was the voice Emily overheard arguing with the German man in the neighboring house, the catalyst for the entire investigation.

A bomb was placed in Emily's kitchen stove because she was getting too close to exposing the smuggling operation. Salwen ordered the assassination attempt to silence her after she discovered too much information about the Nazi criminals and their infiltration into the country. Cochran managed to disarm the bomb just in time for them to escape.

After Cochran was removed from the investigation following the bomb incident, he defied his orders and met Emily at Grand Central Terminal. Together, they intercepted the criminals just before their departure on the train to Chicago. Cochran arrested the entire party while revealing Teperson's true identity as an Auschwitz physician to the other passengers.

Salwen died after Emily kicked him off a catwalk in Grand Central Terminal's ceiling framework. He had cornered her there and attempted to restrain her physically to prevent her from stopping the operation, but she defended herself by pushing him over the edge. He crashed through the ceiling and fell to his death.

Cochran continued to help Emily because he believed in the truth and justice of exposing the Nazi smuggling operation, even after being removed from the case. His moral compass override his orders, leading him to defy his superiors and assist her in the final confrontation at Grand Central Terminal.

The book Emily picked up contained a woman's name and a date inside the cover, which Cochran and Hackett deduced was actually the name of a ship arriving at the Port of New York. This clue connected Stefan's list to a new arrival of criminals and led Emily and Cochran to observe the ship and track the passengers to the wedding reception.

Cochran viewed intelligence photographs that showed the men on Stefan's list were Nazi war criminals traveling under false identities. The photos confirmed they were being smuggled into the US for secret anti-Soviet programs, which Salwen later partially confirmed to Emily during their restaurant confrontation.