A beautiful but vain woman who rejects the love of her older husband must face the loss of her youth and beauty.

After the King of Rovenia has been assassinated, Holmes and Watson are engaged to escort his son to Europe via Algiers, aboard a transatlantic ocean liner which also carries a number of suspicious persons, any of whom may be involved in a plot to also assassinate him.

Vincent Lubeck is a vicious ex-convict. His criminal activities are despised by his family, but he uses and abuses them in the course of his crimes. Eventually his own brother must stand up to him.