Templar and Orace stay in a pillbox that Simon has purchased from the Ministry of Defence in the small North Devon seaside town of Baycombe, their intent to foil a plan by a mysterious individual known only as "The Tiger" to smuggle stolen gold.

Templar's motivation is to settle an old score with The Tiger, with whom he has had prior dealings though he's never actually met the villain, and to return the gold to its proper owner and collect the reward.

Holm becomes the protagonist for the middle third of the novel during a period when she believes Templar to be dead and decides to continue following his plan to foil the Tiger.

In the 1934 novel 'The Misfortunes of Mr. Teal' Charteris introduced another recurring ally, an American gangster named Hoppy Uniatz, an old friend and accomplice of Templar's from their adventures in New York.

The film starred Hugh Sinclair as Templar, with Jean Gillie as Patricia Holm, Wylie Watson as Horace (renamed from the original book's Orace), and Clifford Evans as the Tiger.