Having spent 10 years in prison for nationalist activities, Shack Twala is finally ordered released by the South African Supreme Court but he finds himself almost immediately on the run after a run-in with the police. Assisted by his lawyer Rina Van Niekirk and visiting British engineer Jim Keogh, he heads for Capetown where he hopes to recover a stash of diamonds, meant to finance revolutionary activities, that he had entrusted to a dentist before his incarceration. Along the way, they are followed by Major Horn of the South African State security bureau and it becomes apparent that he has no intention of arresting them until they reach their final destination

Jean Carter, nine-year-old daughter of the town's newly-appointed school principal, Peter Carter and his wife Sally, is playing in the woods with her 11-year-old friend Lucille, when Jean discovers she has lost her purse containing her "candy" money. Lucille tells her she knows where they can get sweets for nothing, and leads her to an imposing mansion, from which the owner, Clarence Olderberry, Sr., a tall, gaunt man of 70 has been watching the girls from a window. That night Jean, unable to sleep, tells her parents that Oldeberry made her and Lucille dance before him nude in exchange for some candy. Carter files a complaint, but the local police chief, Captain Hammond, is skeptical of Jean's story and warns Carter that the Oldenberry family put the town on the map and have far more standing in the community than the new-comer Carters. Oldenberry, Jr. also tells Carter that if he follows up on the complaint he may be certain that Oldenberry's lawyers will show Jean no mercy. In the ...

In London, wealthy Margot Mary Wendice had a brief love affair with the American writer Mark Halliday while her husband and professional tennis player Tony Wendice was on a tennis tour. Tony quits playing to dedicate to his wife and finds a regular job. She decides to give him a second chance for their marriage. When Mark arrives from America to visit the couple, Margot tells him that she had destroyed all his letters but one that was stolen. Subsequently she was blackmailed, but she had never retrieved the stolen letter. Tony arrives home, claims that he needs to work and asks Margot to go with Mark to the theater. Meanwhile Tony calls Captain Lesgate (aka Charles Alexander Swann who studied with him at college) and blackmails him to murder his wife, so that he can inherit her fortune. But there is no perfect crime, and things do not work as planned.