Illya Kuryakin is investigating the theft of cats in the Soho area of London, and Napoleon Solo is on a mission to determine the whereabouts of the famous, suddenly youthful appearing, and now missing 83 year old biologist Benjamin Lancer. Solo contacts Lancer’s daughter Lorelei, a model at the Paris salon of Madame Raine De Sala. De Sala orders her associate Olga and another model Do Do to make sure that Lorelei does not speak to Solo. De Sala herself visits Sir Norman Swickert, a very old statesman she knew and admired as a child, and brings along with her Dr. Gritsky – a colleague of Dr. Lancer. Swickert complains of being too old to have political power anymore, and De Sala reveals her desire for such power as he once had, her resentment of not having it available to her since she is a woman, and her ability to make him a younger man with Gritsky’s help.