Judge Roger Shaw, Joe King delivers a harsh sentence to a man found guilty of diverting and misappropriating public funds, locking him away for ten long years with no parole. From this stern verdict, a cunning gang of racketeers hatches a plan to strike back at Shaw by murder, weaving a web of vengeance that will drag in unsuspecting lives.
John Ellman, Boris Karloff, newly released after a decade behind bars for a death caused by a blow he once struck, is asked to shadow Shaw under the pretense of investigating supposed infidelity. The setup is chillingly simple: a trusted observer is placed near the judge, and a crime is soon to unfold. Shaw is killed in his automobile, and Ellman, nearby and hearing the crash, is found at the scene and quickly becomes the prime suspect in a murder with no obvious motive.
A young couple, Nancy, Marguerite Churchill, and Jimmy, Warren Hull, who work for Dr. Evan Beaumont, bear witness to the aftermath of the crime — they see the body moved but are silenced by a mysterious figure who orders them to keep quiet. Ellman is framed and subjected to a courtroom drama that feels rigged from the start. Despite evidence that should clear him, he is condemned to the electric chair, his innocence seemingly proven too late to save him.
Dr. Beaumont, Edmund Gwenn, who had quietly arranged Ellman’s employment for reasons of his own, retrieves the dying man’s body and performs a controversial experiment: he revives Ellman as part of a daring inquiry into life, death, and what might lie beyond. The revival grants Ellman an uncanny, almost supernatural, ability to sense the guilty as he moves, and it propels a relentless pursuit of those who had him killed.
Ellman learns that Nolan, Ricardo Cortez, has been named guardian to the revived man and is rewarded with a state settlement of $500,000. Yet the revived man’s perception makes it clear that Nolan is not his ally; Ellman can feel a hidden enmity that compels him to seek out the men who betrayed him, piece by painful piece.
As Ellman begins to confront his former framers, each death seems to unfold from their own creeping guilt rather than from any direct action by him. First, Trigger, Joe Sawyer, is frightened by Ellman’s presence and accidentally shoots himself. Then Blackstone, Paul Harvey, tries to flee town but is stalked to the depot and crushed by a passing train. Merritt, Robert Strange, is found to have a fatal heart attack after Ellman’s quiet visitation to his apartment. Ellman himself vanishes for a time, and Nancy eventually finds him wandering near a cemetery, trying to coax him back, only to have him slip away again as she hurries to summon Beaumont.
The plot accelerates to tragedy as Ellman is fatally shot by the two remaining conspirators who framed him. Dr. Beaumont hurries to the graveside in the cemetery, where Ellman lies in the gravekeeper’s cottage, and pleads for answers about the afterlife. Ellman, facing the end, delivers a stark warning drawn from scripture: Leave the dead to their maker. The Lord our God is a jealous God. As his life fades, the doomed conspirators meet their own doom when their car careens off the road, strikes an electric pole, and explodes. The circle closes with Beaumont repeating Ellman’s warning about that jealous, inscrutable God, leaving the living to reckon with the consequences of their choices and the mysteries that lie beyond death.
