The cornea grafts that will, hopefully, restore the sight of blind millionaire Marten Halvarssen fascinate Steed: they're rumoured to be coming from a live patient, one Hilda Brauer. Steed suspects that all is not what it seems and so sends Cathy to Switzerland to oversee the operation.

A series of sudden deaths in high finance leads Steed to dabble in shares while Emma investigates the makers of executive paging devices. Are companies being acquired through a simple and subtle form of murder?

Several notorious criminals have vanished into thin air. A whisper has been received that the escape chain starts in London, but, when agent Paxton follows it, he winds up dead in the Thames with a 300-year-old bullet in him.