Henrik Verle, whose late father has made his name known and respected, was born into wealth; he is gifted, endowed with a number of talents, is thus very musical and a skilled pianist, but his great wealth has made it unnecessary to exploit his natural abilities. He also has a mania for collecting the strangest things. Verle is ready at the prison gate when the doctor Erik Menkel is released after six years behind bars. Six years for a crime he did not commit. Verle, who is both trustworthy and jovial on the surface, hides an unpleasant secret: he is a mass murderer and, among other things, guilty of the crime for which the doctor was imprisoned.