A frantic mother comes to 221B Baker Street, begging Sherlock Holmes to find her son. A naval officer posted to HMS Dido, he was part of the Naval Brigade that joined the Natal Field Force to fight the Boers. But he did not return with his men, and is being denounced as a deserter. Can Holmes and Watson uncover the truth, a truth that threatens the very fabric of the British Empire?

Jon Kendrick, the only true friend of Zebediah Crummler, the caretaker of Felicity Grove's cemetery who has been arrested for murder and imprisoned, must make sense of Crummler's riddles, ravings and inconsistent stories, which have buried within them the clues to who killed Teddy Harnes.