Cry Wolf (1947)

In reading about the death of and imminent private service for James Demarest in the newspaper, Sandra Marshall goes to the vast and isolated estate of James' wealthy maternal uncle, Mark Caldwell, in she claiming to be Mrs. James Demarest about which no one his family apparently knew. She admits that it was a marriage of convenience in helping James, her friend, gain access to his estate from Mark as Mark had convinced James' mother, his sister, before her passing years ago to keep both James and his sister Julie's vast inheritance in trust controlled by Mark until they reached the age of thirty, that control to be transferred to their spouse if they should marry before that age. James had confided to Sandra that he believed Mark was trying to steal both his and Julie's inheritance, he even controlling their social lives so as to limit their access to potential spouses. In what Sandra claims is an updated will written after their marriage, she has come for the money, what she believes is now legally hers in James' death. In wanting to verify Sandra's claims, Mark invites her to stay at the estate until such time, which includes authenticating the marriage license she produced as well as trying to locate a legal copy of the updated will. In staying at the estate, Sandra notices that Mark has the household servants on a tight leash, they who seemingly will do whatever he requests of them, including perhaps lie. She also befriends Julie, who claims to be a prisoner at the estate. But more concerning for Sandra, Julie believes based on things that she's heard that James is still alive, those noises, James' screams, emanating from Mark's locked laboratory at the back of the mansion, that area of the mansion to which only he has access. At her potential peril, Sandra tries to discover if James is still alive, the answer, if there is one, hidden behind the locked door to Mark's laboratory.