In this lurid melodrama Tod Slaughter plays a villain who murders the wealthy Sir Percival Glyde in the gold fields of Australia and assumes his identity in order to inherit his estate in England.

On arriving in England he schemes to marry an heiress for her money and, with the connivance of the enigmatic Count Fosco, embarks on a killing spree of all who suspect him to be an imposter and get in the way of his plans to be the Lord the Manor.