The Unknown 1946

In a grand Kentucky mansion, Captain Selby Martin and Phoebe Martin confront a tangled family secret: their daughter Rachel Martin has secretly married Richard Arnold, even as they had hoped she would be engaged to James Wetherford. A heated confrontation between Selby and Richard ends with the captain’s accidental death. Phoebe, steady and calculating, arranges for his burial in a crypt guarded by their sons Ralph Martin and Edward Martin, and she refuses Rachel permission to marry Richard. The shock of the tragedy unsettles Rachel, leaving her emotionally fragile, and she gives birth to a baby girl who Phoebe later raises through others.

Years pass, and that baby grows into Nina Arnold, who returns home for the reading of Phoebe’s will, accompanied by two investigators, Doc Long and Jack Packard. Nina soon learns that Rachel has fallen into madness, and that Ralph and Edward nurse resentful views toward her. When the will disappears, the estate seems destined to go to Ralph, Edward and Rachel, reshaping the family fortune.

A sequence of eerie events follows: Nina is pushed down the stairs, Doc and Jack are imprisoned, and Edward’s body is found in the crypt just as Richard Arnold arrives. Phoebe reappears, revealing she faked her own death to bring Rachel, Richard and Nina together. Phoebe is then killed. In a final twist, Ralph is revealed as the killer who despises his own family. Nina inherits the estate and watches as her parents Rachel and Richard are finally reunited.