Charles Kessler has dinner with his wife. And by wife, I mean nobody, but he pretends his wife is there. She went missing, and no one knows where she is. Well, I mean, the groundskeeper knows where she is — after a car accident left her brain-damaged, he took her in to care for her. But he won’t let her out of the house, lest she hurt herself further.
Except, of course, she does get out of the house and stands under Charles’s window. Rather than being excited at seeing her, he goes into a homicidal fugue state and strangles the new maid. But because Evans, the butler, saw Charles’s daughter’s fiancé, Ralph, talking to the new maid, the law assumes it was Ralph who murdered her and puts him to death.
Later, Ralph’s twin brother, Paul, shows up, confusing and horrifying a bunch of folks, but it doesn’t amount to much. And yeah, Charles’s wife keeps showing up, driving him into more homicidal fugue states, and he keeps getting away with it.
Though convoluted and inconsistent, Legosi is fun, and the atmosphere is cozy. It’s poverty row, what do you expect? Also, I fell asleep for part of it, but I woke up near the end, and it made total sense, so I don’t think I missed anything essential.