A serial killer who calls himself "The Laughing Corpse" dresses up in a skeleton costume and kills his victims with a poison-filled scorpion-shaped ring.

Scotland Yard's Inspector Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger) becomes involved in a case that begins with the corpse of Sir Oliver supposedly laughing from inside his own coffin during his funeral. Soon people who were close to Sir Oliver start to get killed. Sir Oliver's brother Sir Cecil swears he saw his dead brother jaunting around the countryside in a skeleton costume. Higgins teams up with reporter Peggy Brand (Siw Mattson) and his bumbling chief Sir Arthur (Hubert von Meyerinck) to unmask the villain who is killing people with a poisoned scorpion ring.