Nicholas Marlow is an Englishman who has just lost his job. His fiancee reads a notice for a job in Milan with the Spartacus Machine Tool Company, specializing in making boring machines very useful in armament manufacturing. Marlow is hopeful of working a year there to save money to get married but without wanting to be, Marlow is soon deeply in the midst of murder and espionage activity between Italian, German, and Russian agents. Zaleshoff and his sister Tamara befriend Marlow to use him to spread disinformation to cause trouble between Italy and Germany.