Cross-Up

Late one night in London, American newspaper correspondent John Desmond stumbles out of a warehouse and collapses in the street before police come to his aid. While waiting for an ambulance, John recalls how he came to be injured: Several weeks earlier, John flies into London from New York after being diverted from his original assignment for World Wide News in Paris. Dismayed at his abrupt transfer, John meets with London correspondent "Mac" Macaulay, who is going to Paris in John's place, but neither Mac nor John's new assistant, Jane Claymore, has an explanation for the switch. Resentful and lonely the night after his arrival, John goes to a bar and meets beautiful Anna Ray, who intrigues John when she appears willing to get romantically involved, but refuses to reveal anything about her personal life. John begins dating Anna regularly and, to Jane's dismay, treats his assignment to report on the local point-of-view flippantly. After seeing Anna for some weeks, John is startled when she reacts hostiley to his inquiries about her life. One afternoon John follows Anna and sees her enter a car driven by a man. That evening, Anna telephones John to chastise him angrily and declares that they must never see each other again. Later, when Anna refuses to answer John's calls, he sends her a telegram insisting she see him. Anna does not answer the telegram, so John goes to her apartment and finds her packing. Picking up Anna's diary and threatening to read it, John is stunned when Anna draws a gun and harshly demands the diary's return. During the ensuring struggle, the gun discharges and Anna is killed. Frightened, John cleans up all evidence of his presence and, taking the diary, flees. Concerned when John does not file his weekly copy, Jane tracks him to a bar. Back at the office, John tells Jane the details behind Anna's accidental death, but when Jane insists he inform the police, John hesitates, convinced they will not believe him. Wondering why Anna was so possessive of her diary, John looks through it and discovers it is in code. Jane then tells John she believes him and offers to keep the diary in a safe place for him. The next day when Anna's death is not mentioned in the papers, John abruptly remembers sending the telegram and returns to the apartment to retrieve it. Slipping in through a window from the fire escape, John is startled to find Anna's body missing. John takes the telegram, but out on the street is picked up by police detectives. Once in their car, John realizes the men are not the police, and is knocked out. John is taken to a house, where Anna's bosses, Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Foster, attempt to learn why he murdered her and what he has done with her contact list. John cannot answer the questions and is knocked out by Fitzgerald and Foster's cronies, Nick and Sam. When John revives, he realizes the diary is the contact list and tells Foster he is an American government agent and has turned the list over to his government. John then names Fitzgerald as his inside contact, confusing Foster and the others, long enough to escape. Sam and Nick follow and Sam is struck and killed by a train as John flees to the countryside. The next day the newspaper reports that Anna's body has been found in the Thames River. Mac returns from Paris to learn why John has failed to file his last story, and although Jane attempts to cover for him, Mac contacts Scotland Yard to report John missing. Later, John contacts Jane and arranges to meet her in the subway with the diary. In an attempt to prevent Mac from inquiring further about John, Jane suggests that his unusual behavior may have been prompted by a form of amnesia. On her way to meet John, Jane evades Nick, who is following her, but she is too late to meet John, who is taken in by the police and hospitalized for his "illness," which Mac has reported. Jane visits John at the hospital and leaves him the diary. John feigns amnesia with Mac, but when alone with Jane a couple of days later, reveals that he has cracked the code in Anna's diary, revealing it to be a list of members of a counterfeit ring across Europe. Meanwhile at the hospital, Foster, pretending to be a specialist sent by John's family, orders John's transfer to a private facility and takes him back to the warehouse hideout. Alarmed to find John missing from the hospital, Jane convinces the hospital staff to allow her to take John's private belongings, including the diary, which she turns over to the police. Meanwhile, after more physical torture, John reveals the location of the diary, but Foster is too late to retrieve it. Upon Foster's return, John attempts to escape and shoots Nick, but is wounded by Foster, who then flees. Sent by Jane, the police capture Foster and find the wounded John collapsed in the street. Jane arrives and rides with John in the ambulance, where the doctor assures her that John will recover.