Duclos's son, a worldly gangster, is compromised in a case of which he is innocent. The proof of this innocence is in the hands of a "competitor", the Marquis de Chemantel de Beauvoiron, a misguided aristocrat. He asks for $10 million to cede the document. Duclos then imagines Chemantel contracting $10 million in life insurance for his son. In Rome he discovers a tramp who looks just like the Marquis, so he brings the man to Paris and arrange his accidental.