Sue Talley is waiting at the Hotel Navarre on the French coast to meet a representative of her long-lost brother Francis, whom she has never seen. As children, Sue and Frank were each given half a Biblical quotation that will identify them to each other and enable them to claim their inheritance. That evening, as Sue walks along the shore, a man attacks her. She manages to escape and seeks refuge in the room of her fellow hotel guest, Jim Sundean. While Jim looks for Sue's room key, which was lost in the struggle, a man is murdered. Jim is arrested for the murder even though it appears that the sinister owners of the hotel, Grete and Marcus Lovschiem, know more than they are telling. When David Lorn, Sue's brother's lawyer, arrives from New York, she sends him to Jim's aid. After Jim is released, he investigates the murder. Marcel, a hotel employee, is murdered before he can reveal the name of the murderer. Jim discovers that Dr. Roberts, a man he saw leaving Sue's room, is not really a doctor, but Roberts disappears before the police can look into it. Meanwhile, a man calling himself Frank Talley arrives at the hotel, but Sue is suspicious and demands that he prove who he is before she shows him her half of the quotation. Even Lorn can't verify the man's identity because he admits that he has never met Frank in person. Jim uncovers a plot by the Lovschiems to kidnap Sue and replace her with an imposter. Later, Roberts is found dead. When the Lovschiem's white cockatoo pulls Sue's stolen quotation from Lorn's pocket, Jim realizes that Roberts was really Frank and that Lorn murdered him and hired the false Frank. After the police arrest Lorn, Sue receives a letter informing her that her entire estate was lost through bad investments, but after Jim asks her to marry him, she admits that enough money is left to provide them with a comfortable life.