kind hearts and coronets, synopsis

Louis Mazzini, a young man, the son of a duke's daughter and a penniless Italian singer who died at his birth, vows to eliminate the ten people who stand between him and the dukedom, a desire for vengeance that becomes intensified when his mother, on her own death, is refused admission to the family vault. He works his way through the list, drowning, exploding and poisoning his rivals and finally shooting the Duke of Chalfont himself, aided on his way by departures through natural causes or self-imposed stupidity.

There are two romantic attachments, one to a headstrong girl called Sibella whom he has known since childhood, who marries a dull man in a fit of pique, and the other to Edith, the gracious, beautiful widow of one of his victims, whom he intends to make his duchess. At the moment of triumph, as he is occupying the ducal stately home, he is arrested for the murder, not of any of his genuine victims, but of Sibella's husband who has really committed suicide.

The story is narrated by the hero, who is spending the eve of his execution finishing his memoirs. At dawn he is saved by the 'discovery' of a suicide note, and as he leaves the prison he is confronted by the need to make a choice between the two ladies - that is until a reporter's question reminds him that he has left his full confession back in the cell.