Bad day for Chico: first he has a run in with the Going-Going, the animal that eats everything, then with Drunky Duck (who delivers his mail dressed as a gigantic spider!). This time, however, the Darkwood's crazy mailman brings bad news: the colonel doctor Norman Perry, an old friend of Zagor's, is shut up in the “House of the Happy People”, Charleston's lunatic asylum!
In Elkins, a town in West Virginia, Trampy has set up a quiz show (“Guess, if you can!”), which is very successful. But Chico, who acts as his page, shows up and the quiz goes to rack and ruin. Followed by the usual shouting crowd, the Mexican meets Drunky Duck, who gives him a letter from Fishleg: the captain of the “Golden Baby” awaits him and Zagor at the gloomy Tavern of the Owl...
The message that Zagor has received was not from Fishleg but from his charming niece Virginia, who wants to reach her uncle to tell him that he has received a considerable inheritance. The three reach Fishleg's ship, moored in the Norfolk harbor. But a passenger, the Chinaman, Ling, is mysteriously murdered...
