"The structure of the film is flawless, and Lang builds and maintains the suspense effortlessly. He reveals the methods of the spies with meticulous care."-Bertrand Augst

In the postwar city, everything is information, and information is all that matters. Haghi (Rudolph Klein–Rogge) is the respectable banker and master criminal who uses all the instruments of modern technology (the train, the telephone, photography) to gain possession of government secrets and assert his will to power. While keeping his enemies under strict surveillance, Haghi remains invisible, secluded in his modernist office and attended to by a mute nurse. As suspense is heightened through shots that fragment space and omit phases of the action, we witness the rise and fall of Haghi's delirious and yet rationally orchestrated plans. An unexpected, enduring love will break the clockwork precision of the system on which Haghi relies. In order to exercise his power one last time, the master criminal will have to renounce his invisibility, and step onto the stage.