Having casually overheard a confusing phone conversation between two women, Alberto manages to get in touch with one of the callers, Claudia, a painter. The two become lovers and things are spiced up by Claudia's ambiguous sexual nature and by the presence of her former lover, Pietro. Alberto discovers a pistol in Claudia's handbag and this leads to a further revelation: she's dominated by her stepmother Greta, who forced her into a clandestine lesbian relationship; of which Claudia is ashamed and wants to end - at all costs. Alberto, now a slave to love, runs Greta over. But Claudia denies urging him to murder...

On his way back from the Civil War, Johnny Hamilton is visited in his sleep by the ghost of his father who lets him know that he has been murdered and who asks him to avenge him. Back in the family ranch, Johnny finds that not only has his father been killed but that Gertrude, his mother, has married her late husband's brother Claude. The latter is now the owner of the ranch and of all the properties of the deceased. Polonius, a ruthless bandit, is supposed to have killed Johnny's father. But couldn't it be Claude...?