In the North Atlantic, the MV Lugosi is battered by pounding rain and high seas. A crewman, struggling through the rain, feels a darkness like a cloud coming down. He looks up and throws out his arms in horror. The mother of all waves is rising up around the ship, like a giant fist reaching to the stars. It comes crashing down and... oblivion.

Next we see the newspaper headlines. Lost at sea, Professor Vambery and his collection of 15 priceless paintings. Too bad for the Metropolitan museum, who was expecting Vambery to donate the 15 paintings. Then, two weeks after the tragedy, Ellen Cross is called into her boss's office. He is director of the museum and has intriguing news. Apparently, one of the paintings supposedly lost at sea has turned up, in Hungary, of all places. Caught in the hands of a career criminal named A. Friedlen.

Ellen is dispatched to Hungary to check it out. The painting is an original, all right. But she'll never find out how Friedlen got... Read more