A former prison doctor abducts beautiful women from nightclubs and tries to use their skin to repair his daughter's fire-scarred face.

At the turn of the century, Dr. Orlof, a respected surgeon, secretly abducts young actresses from cafes in disreputable areas in order to perform skin grafting operations on the features of his horribly disfigured daughter. Aiding him is a criminal, Marius, whom Orlof has blinded and turned into a near robot. Police create a composite portrait of the unknown fiend, but the evidence is inconclusive until Wanda, the ballerina fiancée of Inspector Tanner, decides to act as bait without telling the inspector. Orlof is lured into the trap and takes Wanda to his castle for surgical experimentation. Meanwhile, a necklace belonging to one of the victims is found in a stream flowing through Orlof's property. As police close in, Marius turns on Orlof, who has killed the one woman who has treated him kindly; and the mad doctor is killed as Inspector Tanner rescues his fiancée.