One night, in a private boarding house in Scarborough, a railwayman vanishes, leaving his belongings behind. A reluctant Jim Stringer is sent to investigate. It is March 1914, and Jim Stringer, railway detective, is uneasy about his next assignment. It's not so much the prospect Scarborough in the gloomy off-season that bothers him, or even the fact that the last railwayman to stay in the house...