When Miss Norah Allet, aspiring novelist, disappears from Colonel Crayle's guest house, Detective Chief Superintendent Grant of the Hexford CID finds himself pressurised into a full-scale investigation. One of the other guests is political journalist Henry Marsh, who possesses information which could, if published, plunge the country into the gravest of scandals. When Marsh's beloved great-niece Valerie's is kidnapped, the two cases merge.