In 1936, in Shanghai, Dutch shipping tycoon Hendrick Van Boyden is informed by his doctor that, as a result of injuries incurred after a fall from one of his ships, he will no longer be able to run his business and may not live much longer. Van Boyden tells the doctor that, as he feels war is about to break out, he is going to convert his wealth into cash and jewels, which can be easily transported. He appoints an old friend, Tao Ling, in Huang Shan, as trustee and gives him eight specially engraved gold coins, which are to be sent to his relatives as identification ten years after his death. Tao Ling is instructed to select the most worthy of the relatives to receive the entire fortune. Ten years later, after the war Van Boyden predicted is over, Jack Clark, one of Van Boyden's heirs and a former Flying Tiger pilot and soldier of fortune, arrives at an inn in Shanghai, having been summoned by Tao Ling. There, he finds Van Boyden's other heirs, who have been similarly summoned: a young Spanish woman, Elena Valdez; Nils Otter, a Swede; Sonia Bardos, a mysterious Russian woman; Dutchman Jan Schuyler; a German, Rudolph Busch; Lance Warburton, a British writer; and Latin American Alfredo Charles. On the hotel's guest list, Jack also sees the name of a man, Leo Turkan, who earlier tried to have him murdered and took his identifying coin. Jack goes to Turkan's room and, at gunpoint, retrieves his coin. During the night, Turkan is murdered and his body dumped in the inn's well. The next day, the group departs by bus for Tao Ling's house in Huang Shan. En route, the bus is stopped by bandits and, when they are ordered to leave the bus, they discover that Charles has been murdered. The bandits take the heirs to a beautiful mansion, where the bandits' chieftain orders them to hand over their coins, declaring that as he helped Van Boyden amass his fortune, partly by smuggling, he is entitled to his share. The chieftain demands that one of the heirs go to claim the twenty million dollar fortune, of which he will take half, leaving the balance to be divided among the heirs. When Sonia is elected by the heirs to collect the fortune, the chieftain reminds them that Turkan and Charles appear to have been murdered by a member of their group, thus sowing seeds of suspicion among them. After Jack and Elena try to escape from the mansion, Busch falls to his death from a cliff while attempting to flee. Sonia also tries to escape, but is captured and apparently shot. The chieftain then selects Jack to collect the treasure chest, but upon his return, he finds Otter stealing from it. They fight and Jack is knocked out. Schuyler enters the room, kills Otter and stuffs his pockets with cash and jewels. The remainder of the group, alerted by the commotion, find Schuyler, but he draws a gun on them, saying that he killed Turkan and Charles and wants all the money to rebuild a library destroyed by the Nazis in Holland. Jack regains consciousness and attempts to reason with Schuyler. The gun is knocked from Schuyler's hand by a cane wielded by Von Boyden, who is not, as everyone has assumed, dead. Von Boyden tells the group that he devised an elaborate ruse to test their characters and individual worthiness and that the bandit chieftain is his old friend Tao Ling. Sonia reappears but Von Boyden tells the remaining four heirs, Jack, Elena, Warburton and Sonia, that he finds them all wanting and decides to leave them nothing whatsoever. He prefers Jack and Elena, but they both prove not to be legitimate heirs. Elena received her coin from one of Von Boyden's nephews, a tank commander who died in the European campaign, while Jack's coin was given to him by another nephew, a pilot who was shot down during the war. After Turkan stole the coin from Jack, Schuyler, believing Turkan still had the coin, murdered him. As Jack has proven to be the bravest of the group, Van Boyden invites him to join him in running an airline company he intends to start. Jack and Elena, who have grown fond of each other, embrace.