The Paladines write crime novels together. In a cinema, they happen to see a report on the consequences of a shipwreck in which Lieutenant Dupuis tells about the death of an old man in the lifeboat carrying the survivors. Husband and wife agree that this could be the starting point of a new story and go and see Dupuis to get more details about the drama. When they come to his hotel Dupuis is dead with a bullet in his head. Police characterizes the death as suicide but Paladine has found a train ticket in the dead man's pocket. With his wife he takes the train to the specified destination, somewhere in the provinces...

Cambo, a banker, has been in trouble since a certain Parizot has tried to extort stocks from him. Following the advice of his friend Quincampoix, Cambo decides to trade places with Bardac, a painter, who happens to be his lookalike. Bardac slips into Cambo's shoes with delight although he does not really live up to his task. But Cambo, who manages to ruin Parizot, makes a 100% profit on the situation. There are of course some misunderstandings when one man is mistaken for the other, notably as concerns Lulu and Geneviève, respectively Bardac's and Cambo's sweethearts, but things finally return to their initial state.

The son of a sailor, who seduced and abandoned the mother, doesn't get along with the new man, a clockmaker, the woman weds. He turns to delinquent behavior and smuggling and leaves on a ship, just like his father.

A poacher nicknamed "Le Bouif" is accused of having murdered his son-in-law, trainer of a horse stable in Maisons-Laffitte.