You can't expect hired murderers to be men of honor.
When I started down the krimi path back in June, I honestly had no idea how far it would take me. Now, six and a half months and 21 films later, I have arrived at the last one of the year: 1966's Strangler of the Tower. One of the few made by Urania-Filmproduktion before its output devolved into the likes of 1968's Nude Django, 1969's The Erotic Adventures of Robin Hood, and 1970's Porno Baby (which Strangler's screenwriter/executive producer Erwin C. Dietrich -- here credited as Michael Thomas -- directed under another assumed name), the film was the one and only feature for Hans Mehringer, whose direction is largely undistinguished. What makes it stand out, then, are the title character -- a silent brute played by Ady Berber in his final role -- and the hooded cult of Brothers in the Holy Order of Righteousness. Berber's talents may be used sparingly (after the opening murder, he doesn't reappear for another 40 minutes), but the Brothers get roughly eleven minutes of screen time, which is about twice as much as the hooded characters in these films are usually allotted.
As for the plot in which they're embroiled, it involves a cursed emerald that was split into five pieces three decades earlier and dispersed among the clientele of London jewelers Cliften & Cliften. Both Cliftens, incidentally, are played by top-billed Charles Regnier (last seen by me as the main henchman in The Testament of Dr. Mabuse and the detective in The Black Abbot), with one of them still in charge of the family firm (as well as being one of the emerald's owners) while the other is in exile, having disgraced himself with some financial malfeasance. That doesn't seem to trouble mystery novelist Grace Harrison (Kai Fischer), who's putting him up and turns out to be one of the emerald's other owners. She's also in touch with a third, Lady Trenton (Ellen Schwiers), who in turn goes to see the fourth, Sir Humphry (Alfred Schlageter), when it becomes clear they're being targeted. As for the fifth, well, that's the initial murder victim, Mrs. Wilkins, whose daughter Jane (Christa Linder) stands to inherit her fortune, although the Brothers may have something to say about that.
That's where Scotland Yard Inspector Harvey (Hans Reiser, previously seen as the pushy reporter in The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle) comes in, although initially he has no idea he's up against a group of guys in pointy black hoods and robes. (There are a few women among their ranks as well if their footwear is anything to go by.) After they abduct Jane, she is brutally whipped until she gives them the information they want (along with the emerald she got from her mother) and is severely beaten (while one of the Brothers observes, absently filing his nails) until she wills them the balance of her inheritance. That may seem harsh, but it's still a better deal than the fate that awaits the other four, who are strangled one by one while Inspector Harvey fails to protect them. (To give some idea of how vicious these chaps are, it is suggested that one of their victims has to have one of his fingers cut off so his ring can be removed.) Meanwhile, there's a subplot about a stripper named Dodo (Birgit Bergen, later to appear in Dietrich's Nazisploitation flick She Devils of the SS) who's flying to Rio as part of a smuggling operation that exists mainly so Mehringer can shoehorn in some striptease acts. (Never mind that he can't show any actual nudity.) And there's also a fair bit of business about an obscure book written about the emerald by a Dr. Livingstone, who's presumed to have died during the war. I've seen enough krimis by now, though, to know that anyone who's presumed to be dead will almost certainly turn out not to be.