Perry Swimborn, an old friend of Richard Hannay's, has beeen found drowned on the moors in England. Hannay is surprised to find that he is a beneficiary in Swimborn's will - he has been left a lighthouse in the region where Swimborn died, a walking stick, and a pair of binoculars with instructions ""to use them to help my dearest to accomplish her ambitions"". Swimborn's fortune and manor-house have been bequeathed to his natural daughter, Vivian Laputa, born in Africa and the product of a forbidden love between Swimborn and a black African Queen.

Hannay talks to Delahunty, Swimborn's lawyer, about the Laputa golden amulet which symbolizes Vivian's right to her tribe's throne. No-one knows where it is, and Delahunty believes that Swimborn was murdered whilst protecting it from somebody who wanted it for its immense monetary value.

Delahunty asks Hannay to protect Vivian while she is in England, as Cromwell and Vermilion, Swimborn's nephews, feel betrayed by their uncle's will, and may