Toma travels abroad, posing as a professor of archaeology, to track down the source of a ring smuggling narcotics into the United States in artifacts purchased by American tourists. The series is based on the exploits of real-life Detective David Toma. In Madrid, Dave acquires a figurine of a fertility goddess known as the Bambara bust, which he soon discovers has been filled with bags of heroin. When he meets Marian Dalton, an attractive widow whose little girl is carrying a huge toy clown, the detective befriends the woman, whom he believes is linked with the smugglers. He arranges to return to the States aboard the same ocean liner with her.