Richard Hatteras, on holiday in Sydney, rescues a lovely young woman in distress, the start of a series of events that sees him falling in love and becoming ever more entangled in the machinations of the shadowy Doctor Nikola, villain, gentleman, and occult adventurer, who will stop at nothing to steal his prize. Boothby’s Nikola may be the world’s first modern super villain: he is a master of hypnotism and mind control, a telepathic adept, and an astral projectionist. He can cause ordinary men to see images in pools of liquid, and prophesy into the future. It’s said that he knows the hour, moment, and method of his own demise.