Kathy leaves the newspaper business to marry homicide detective Bill, but is frustrated by his lack of ambition and the banality of life in the suburbs. Her drive to advance Bill's career soon takes her down a dangerous path.

Giant robots from Venus invade Chicago. Stranded in the deserted city are Frank and Nora (who has recently attempted suicide). They meet a celebrating couple at a café, Vicki Harris and Jim Wilson. The quartet escape the robot patrol and take refuge in a large hotel. There, they encounter a new danger in Davis, a psychopathic killer.

When master monster make-up man Pete Dumond is fired by the new bosses of American International studios, he uses his creations to exact revenge.

When Watson reads from the newspaper there have been two similar murders near Whitechapel in a few days, Sherlock Holmes' sharp deductive is immediately stimulated to start its merciless method of elimination after observation of every apparently meaningless detail. He guesses right the victims must be street whores, and doesn't need long to work his way trough a pawn shop, an aristocratic family's stately home, a hospital and of course the potential suspects and (even unknowing) witnesses who are the cast of the gradually unraveled story of the murderer and his motive.