Tintin is a young journalist, and his dog Snowy are browsing in an outdoor market in Brussels, Belgium. Tintin buys a miniature model of a ship, the Unicorn, but is then accosted by Barnaby and Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine, who both unsuccessfully try to buy the model from Tintin. Tintin takes the ship home, but it is accidentally broken, resulting in a parchment scroll slipping out of the model and rolling under a piece of furniture. Meanwhile, detectives Thomson and Thompson are on the trail of a pickpocket, Aristides Silk. Tintin finds that the Unicorn has been stolen. He then visits Sakharine in Marlinspike Hall and accuses him of the theft when he sees a miniature model of the Unicorn, but when he notices that Sakharine's model is not broken, he realizes that there are two Unicorn models. Once Tintin returns home, Snowy shows him the scroll and after reading a message written on it, Tintin puts the scroll in his walletâ??but it is stolen by Silk.