Devil Bat's Daughter

In the small town of Wardsley, Dr. Elliot is called to treat a mysterious young woman, who lies in a trance. After a taxi driver identifies her as the woman he drove out to "the Carruthers place," Elliot and the sheriff investigate. Next to a newspaper bearing the headline "Devil Bat Carruthers guilty of murder," Elliot finds a suitcase and a passport that identify the unconscious woman as Carruthers' daughter, Nina MacCarron, from Glasgow, Scotland. Elliot then asks psychiatrist Cliff Morris to help cure Nina and explains that her father was a scientist whose experiments with cell growth stimulation resulted in giant bats, which killed several people, convincing townspeople that Carruthers was a vampire. In response to Morris' questions, Elliot adds that no notes or reports from the experiments were ever found. Morris brings Nina out of her mental shock, but that night, she hallucinates giant bats and runs hysterically to Morris' house. Morris is in New York, but Ellen, his wife, takes Nina in and puts her to bed. Meanwhile, Morris' mistress, Myra Arnold, begs him to divorce Ellen, whom he married for money. When Morris refuses, Myra responds that she will not see him again. At Ellen's request, Nina remains in the Morris house. Over several weeks, Morris discovers that Carruthers was a Rumanian, who left Nina and her mother when Nina was four years old. After her mother died of anemia, people claimed her father was a vampire and accused him of killing his wife. One day, Ted Masters, Ellen's son from a previous marriage, returns from the army, bringing a dog named Joe with him. He and Nina soon fall in love, but Nina's hallucinations grow more intense and she becomes convinced that her dead father is visiting her in the shape of a bat. Morris insists that Ted is a disturbing influence on Nina's mind and sends him away. Before he leaves, however, Ted, who has always disliked Morris, proposes marriage to Nina, who, unsure of her mental health, hesitantly accepts. One morning, Nina wakes to find Joe lying dead in her room, stabbed with her scissors. Pronouncing Nina too dangerous to stay in the house, Morris resolves to take her to a private sanitarium. That night, Morris gives Nina sleeping tablets, but in the morning, she is found at the bottom of the stairs, next to the bedroom where Ellen has been murdered. Despite the fact that Nina was found with the murder weapon in her hands, Ted believes that she is innocent. He and Elliot search Carruthers' house and find a hidden safe. Next to the empty safe, Ted finds a lucky charm that belongs to his stepfather, a gift from Myra. Convinced that Morris stole Carruthers' laboratory notes, Ted searches the house and the New York apartment without success. He later finds the papers at Myra's house. Ted then confronts Morris in front of Elliot and the sheriff. He explains that Morris cultivated Nina's fears that she had inherited criminal tendencies from her father, so that he could blame her for Ellen's death. Carruthers' papers, however, prove that he was not a criminal. Ted then shows Elliot and the sheriff the pills Morris gave Nina the night of the murder. Powerful dream stimulants, the pills would have made her incapable of moving. Revealed as the murderer, Morris pulls a gun and tries to escape. He is killed in the crossfire, and Nina is cleared.