Warner Oland had died and Sidney Toler took over the role of Charlie Chan. While Lee is apparently in college, Number Two son, Jimmy, becomes the one aspiring to be a detective. During a rather tiresome beginning involving the birth of a grandchild, there is some banter between father and son and other child. While Charlie is at the hospital with the entire here, one of the boys gets a call about a murder aboard a ship. Jimmy and his stowaway brother end up on the ship, impersonating honorable father. In addition to two woman, a strange man who sleeps with a lion, is a weird character played by George Zucco, who was in many horror films. He has a kind of fish tank where he keeps a brain alive. Anyway, things go from bad to worse. One of the women came aboard with 300,000 dollars. It is soon missing. There are numerous suspects and eventually Charlie gets wind of his son's bumbling activities (not terrible, just not very insightful) and heads for the ship. This isn't a bad transition for the series as Toler picks up pretty well where his predecessor left off. This Chan, at least for now, is a bit harsher.