The strangling of a Telegraph Boy lifts the lid on the telegraph boys prostituting themselves and blackmailing their clients. The investigation leads Reid to Barings Bank and the apparent suicide of one of its employees and a missing folio of the Bank's business in an economic disaster in Argentina that would bankrupt the bank. Fred Best, one of the boys' clients becomes involved as Reid's instrument of justice when the law fails. Captain Jackson's means of ridding himself and Long Susan of the debt they owe the moneylender, Silas Duggan backfires when he loses all their money in Argentine stocks.