The story features the recurring Wodehouse characters publishing magnate Lord Tilbury and his devious lackey Percy Pilbeam.

Minor characters include movie mogul Ivor Llewellyn, who appears in two Monty Bodkin novels as well as Bachelors Anonymous, and the solicitor John Shoesmith, from Money in the Bank and Ice in the Bedroom.

On the last day of his Paris holiday, Gerald "Jerry" Shoesmith, editor of Society Spice, loses his wallet, which contains his keys.

Kay's brother and Jerry's friend, Edmund Biffen "Biff" Christopher, is prone to drinking and getting into fights while drunk.

At Barribault's Hotel, Biff is served by waiter William "Willie" Pilbeam, whose son Percy runs a private detective agency, and whose niece Gwendoline Gibbs is secretary to Jerry's formidable employer Lord Tilbury.

Biff discovers he has inherited millions from his godfather, Edmund Biffen Pyke, but on conditions that will be explained in a coming letter.

The next day, Biff is grateful; he has learned his money is in a spendthrift trust and will not be given to him until he turns thirty, and he will get nothing if he is arrested before then.

Jerry briefly returns to Paris to retrieve his wallet and asks Kay to help watch over Biff.

Percy wants to hire Biff to drink with a Russian spy called Joe Murphy (who is actually just a freelance journalist and heavy drinker).

Tilbury goes to Jerry's flat in the morning and tells Biff, who is in sleepwear, to split the money evenly, or else he will argue in court that the late Pyke was mentally incompetent to make a will.

After Kay leaves, a boy employed by Percy delivers a pair of trousers, which Henry puts on before coldly exiting.

Biff does not remember how he got his black eye and thinks the police might be looking for him, so Linda hid him at Tilbury's house, since she thought it was unoccupied.