Tintin and the Golden Fleece pendulum, Calculus insists that the gold is still right above them. Cutting away at the paint on the ship's railings Tintin realizes that they are in fact the camouflaged gold. The chest contained the real railings, and was just a red herring. Haddock finally returns the gold to Tetaragua. The main square in the capital is renamed Paparanic Square, and Haddock receives Tetaragua's highest decoration, the Order of the Scarlet Cheetah. Back home at Marlinspike Hall, Haddock hires Clodion as his cook, and Calculus keeps Romulus as a pet and a test subject for his inventions of a flying birdcage.
The Secret of the Unicorn story was adapted for the 1957 Belvision animated series, "Hergé's Adventures of Tintin", for the 1991 animated series "The Adventures of Tintin" by Ellipse and Nelvana, and for the feature film "" (2011), directed by Steven Spielberg. While browsing on the Brussels Voddenmarkt/"Marché aux puces" at the Vossenplein in the Marollen, Tintin purchases an antique model ship which he intends to give Captain Haddock. Two strangers, model ship collector Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine and antique-scout Barnaby, independently try to persuade Tintin to sell the model to them. He also sees the two police detectives, Thomson and Thompson, on the look out