The Black Abbot 1963

In the desolate ruins of Fossoway Abbey, the legend of the Chelford treasure lures a web of obsession, deception, and peril. Harry Chelford, the last heir, is haunted by a hereditary illness that could snap him into insanity at any moment.

His fiancée, Leslie Gine, is torn between him and Dick Alford, Harry’s cousin and the loyal steward at Chelford Manor.

Leslie’s brother, Arthur Gine, a London lawyer, is being blackmailed by his chief clerk Fabian Gilder, who wants Leslie for himself.

The Black Abbot, a shadowy figure said to guard the treasure, is seen roaming the ancient ruins, fueling fear and rumor.

Detective work arrives with Inspektor Puddler of Scotland Yard and his assistant Horatio, who sift through a knot of suspects after a man is found stabbed to death.

Mary Wenner, Mary Wenner, once secretary to Lord Chelford and now an aspiring wife to the Chelford family, teams up with Gilder to uncover the trove. They find scroll cases with maps of the abbey, but the Black Abbot drives them away and later they discover the maps are gone.

Wenner is shot and killed by Arthur Gine, who is later killed in a confrontation with Gilder.

Leslie Gine calls off the engagement with Harry Lord Chelford, as his grip on reality continues to unravel. On the grounds, he encounters his mother, Lady Chelford, whom he believes to be dead, and in a furious moment he shoots both his mother and the Black Abbot, seizes Leslie as a hostage, and drags her into the tunnels beneath the abbey.

The mystery deepens: there have been two Black Abbots — the first, the butler Thomas Fortuna, acting for Gilder, and the second, Alford, who works with Dr. Loxon to tend to the supposedly dead Lady Chelford, keeping her hidden.

A climactic shoot-out with the police ends with the collapse of the caverns and the death of the last Chelford. In the rubble, among the stones, lie chests that finally reveal the treasure.