Ned Anderson, wealthy young playboy of San Francisco, comes back from a trip around the world to find that James Gillespie, whom he had granted power of attorney before leaving on his trip, had swindled him of his fortune. In his attempt to recover his fortune, and to find Gillespie's secretary who has been kidnapped, Anderson hires Simon Crole, private detective. What follows is a most perplexing mystery in which there is a victim who suffers the same fate - twice Simon Crole and his small agency pull out all stops to beat the police to the solution of the mystery.