Franco "Cookie" Arnò (Karl Malden), a middle-aged blind man, is out at night walking with his niece Lori (Cinzia De Carolis) when he overhears a man in a parked car mention blackmail.
After Franco and Lori return home, the man in the car gets out and
breaks into a large medical complex, the Terzi Institute. The following
day, the police and reporter Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus) investigate the break-in, Carlo introducing himself to Franco during a run-in.
Meanwhile, Dr. Calabresi (Carlo Alighiero) looks at his files in his
office and phones someone and agrees to meet with him. Calabresi tells
his fiancee Bianca Merusi (Rada Rassimov)
that he knows who broke into the institute and what was taken, but does
not wish to tell anyone yet, saying it could mean a "big step forward".
At a train station, while a group of reporters are waiting for a
celebrity to arrive by train,
the man approaches Calabresi and pushes him onto the tracks. Lori reads
the newspaper for Franco about Calabresi's "accidental death,"
describing the picture and telling him that Giordani wrote the article.
The two of them go to see the reporter at his office and ask if the
picture has been cropped. Carlo calls Righetto (Vittorio Congia), the paparazzi
photographer who snapped the picture. Righetto goes back to the
original and sees a moving hand-arm in the far left of the frame. As he
prepares to print the photograph, he is strangled to death with a cord.
The killer takes the photo and all the negatives and leaves. Carlo,
Franco, and Lori arrive and find the body, calling the police led by
Chief Investigator Spimi (Pier Paolo Capponi).
Carlo and Franco survey the Institute from a distance, the former looking through a pair of binoculars
and describing the people leaving the building to Franco: Mombelli,
Esson, Casoni, and Braun, as well as Professor Fulvio Terzi (Tino Carraro) and his daughter Anna (Catherine Spaak).
Carlo goes to the Terzi home and expresses his desire to talk about
Calabresi's "accident". Afterwards, Carlo speaks with Anna, and he
evades her questions of what he and her father spoke about. Carlo and
Anna drive away together, but soon realize they are being followed by
police and drive at full speed to evade them.
Meanwhile, Franco and Lori go to talk with Bianca, and she says that
she could not find anything in the house relating to her fiance's death.
At a local restaurant, Anna tells Carlo about the institute's research of "chromosome alteration" and "XYY", the extra Y producing a "criminal tendency" in a person. Carlo goes to see Dr. Braun (Horst Frank)
at the St. Peter's Club and talks to the doctor about someone being
after the institute's secret drug, news that does not seem to vex the
doctor.
Bianca takes a taxi to Calabresi's parked car in a lot. Inside, she
finds a tiny note with the details of his fatal appointment at the
station. She tapes the note to the inside of her locket. Bianca calls
Franco and says she knows who killed Calabresi, but will only tell him
in person. As Bianca returns to her apartment, the killer attacks and
strangles her with a cord. The killer rummages through her purse, but
does not find anything. Franco shows Carlo a note he received in which
the killer threatens them. Carlo tells Franco he found out that Casoni
was fired from his last job, and Braun received a lot of money. Carlo
goes to see Casoni and the doctor talks about the institute's "wonder
drug" and the "XYY pattern". Carlo then asks Dr. Mombelli about XYY, and
the doctor says that everyone in the institute was tested, but their
results are confidential.
The killer approaches Carlo's front door and injects two milk cartons, dropped off by the local milkman, with a syringe.
Carlo arrives home and brings the milk cartons inside. Anna arrives
shortly thereafter and they talk about more about the research and of
her results of the XYY test. They end up having sex.
Afterwards, Carlo pours a glass of milk from one of the cartons when
Franco phones saying that someone tampered with the gas line on his
stove, flooding his apartment with methane gas and also may try to kill
Carlo. Carlo notices the milk that had bled through the hypodermic
needle holes and knocks the glass away from Anna before she can drink
it.
The following day, Carlo meets with one of his old friends and informants, Gigi (Ugo Fangareggi),
for help in investigating the Terzi break-in which may have been an
inside job. Carlo and Gigi break into Terzi's house and discover that
Anna is adopted and (via a diary) that Terzi "adored" the woman. Carlo
goes to the police station and learns from Spimi that Bianca often met
with Braun and that the cops cannot find the doctor. Carlo runs a story
in the newspaper about Braun being a suspect in the break-in, and a
former gay lover of Manuel (Werner Pochath)
(Braun's new lover) approaches Carlo and tells him where Braun is
hiding. Carlo goes over to the apartment where he is attacked by Manuel.
Carlo wins the fight, and sees Braun lying dead on the couch.
A few days later, Franco contacts Carlo about Bianca's locket and
suggests that the note that she found might still be there. Franco and
Carlo head to the cemetery and open Bianca's family crypt. Carlo gets her coffin open while Franco waits by the door. Carlo finds the locket
and discovers the note behind a metal plate and hands it to Franco. As
Carlo closes the coffin, the killer shuts the crypt door, locking him
in, and attacks Franco. The killer takes the note, but Franco stabs him
with his walking cane (which has a knife hidden inside the cain). While
Franco reopens the door to let Carlo out, Lori is hit on the head, by
the killer, and put in the back of a car. Franco and Carlo find the taxi
which the killer and Lori rode and discover blood in the back seat. The
killer calls Franco and tells him to stop investigating the break in
and murders or otherwise he will kill Lori.
Carlo goes to the police to report the kidnapping and they go to the
Terzi house. Anna comes downstairs with a cloth wrapped around her hand.
Carlo tells her he knows about her incestuous
relationship with her adoptive father and expresses suspicion about the
milk incident (Anna had the glass of poisoned milk for some time
without drinking it). But Anna claims that she only cut her hand on a
broken vase and was nowhere near the cemetery. Then Terzi arrives and
confirms her story.
Carlo and the police arrive at the Terzi Institute and search the
place for Lori, but they find nothing. Carlo sees blood dripping from
the ceiling in one room. He climbs up to the roof and finds Casoni, who
hits him in the face and kicks him to the ground. Casoni, with a stab
wound to his stomach,
goes to a back room where a bound and gagged Lori is and prepares to
stab her. Carlo runs in and tackles Casoni, but is stabbed in the chest.
The police arrive on the roof and chase Casoni. Franco stops him with
his cane blade and Casoni confesses that he murdered Calabresi and the
others to cover up that he tested positive for the XYY chromosome and
that Calabresi was attempting to blackmail him. When Franco asks about
Lori, and Casoni tells Franco that he killed her. Enraged, Franco swings
his cane at Casoni, knocking him through a sky window and down an elevator shaft to his death, just as Lori calls out for Franco.
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