Julien Villandrit is the owner of the estate of Les Basses-Bruyères and its textile factory, where the manager is his childhood friend Corradin.

The only witness to the truth is the woodsman Rudeberg and Corradin buys his silence by paying for the education of his son Pascal.

Julien's struggle to clear his name and to rescue Régine and their daughter Christiane from Corradin's scheming extends over many years and faces many setbacks.

In 1921 the Russian émigré producer Joseph N. Ermolieff undertook three film serials through his company Ermolieff-Cinéma, including one based on La Maison du mystère by the novelist Jules Mary.

The story allowed Ivan Mosjoukine to appear in numerous disguises in the course of the film and to display the range of his acting.

Critics who had previously denounced the serial as artless, lowbrow fare were almost fulsome in their praise of the film's stylish upgrading of melodramatic clichés, sheer pictorial elegance, and narrative imagination, not to mention the utter credibility of the performances.