Nicole Peters

Charade Nicole Peters

While on a skiing holiday, simultaneous interpreter Regina "Reggie" Lampert tells her friend Sylvie that she has decided to divorce her husband Charles. She also meets a charming American stranger, Peter Joshua. On her return to Paris, she finds her apartment stripped bare. A police inspector notifies her that Charles sold off their belongings, then was murdered while trying to leave Paris. The money is missing. Reggie is given her husband's travel bag, containing a letter addressed to her, a ticket to Venezuela, passports in multiple names and nationalities, and other items. At Charles's sparsely attended wake, three men show up to view the body. Each of them tests the body to ensure that he is dead.

Reggie is summoned to meet CIA administrator Hamilton Bartholomew at the U. S. Embassy. She learns that the three men at the wake are Tex Panthollow, Herman Scobie and Leopold W. Gideon. In World War II, they, Charles, and Carson Dyle went on an OSS operation to deliver $250,000 in gold to the French Resistance, but instead, they stole it for themselves. Dyle was fatally wounded in a German ambush, and Charles double-crossed the others and took all the gold. The three survivors are after the missing money, as is the U. S. government. Bartholomew insists that Reggie has it, even if she does not know where it is. He tells her she is likely in great danger.

Peter locates Reggie and helps her move into a hotel. The three criminals separately threaten her, each convinced that she knows where the money is. Scobie then shocks Reggie by claiming that Peter is in league with the trio, after which Peter confesses to her that he is really Carson Dyle's brother, Alexander, intent on bringing the other men to justice because he believes they murdered Carson.

As the hunt for the money continues, first Scobie is found murdered, then Gideon. Then Bartholomew informs Reggie that Carson Dyle had no brother. When she confronts him, Alexander admits he is actually Adam Canfield, a professional thief. Although frustrated by his dishonesty, Reggie still finds herself trusting him.