The Honourable Richard Rollison, aka 'The Toff', is called in to investigate the disappearance of Ralph Kane. But, before the night is out, word comes that beautiful, wealthy Mrs Kane's daughter is also missing. Caroline is sixteen, a charming girl popular with everyone at her boarding-school. Miss Abbott, her housemistress, has no doubt that Caroline meant to keep her word and come straight back from Hapley station that evening. And yet she did not return. Rollison drives the distraught Mrs Kane on a midnight journey to the school, his sense of urgency almost equalling hers, for this second disappearance seems even graver than the first.