During a thunderstorm, John Channing, (Milton Parsons), a dark-eyed maniac, escapes from an asylum after a ten year incarceration and makes his way under the cover of darkness to the Channing estate. There he meets his sister Larinda Channing who was responsible for his escape so that he can help her in a plan to test the greed of her money-grubbing relatives who she has invited to the mansion for the weekend. With obvious glee John poses as Martin the butler when the relatives are told that Larinda has died and that her secretary Mary Wingfield is the sole heir to the estate. With his eyes rolling, the butler exclaims "I do like sharp edges, there`s nothing more fascinating than a scalpel. It cuts...so quickly, so silently, so deeply...which reminds me. I`m going to be a surgeon..."