When a young man's recent comrade-in-arms becomes strangely inaccessible, Sherlock Holmes comes to his aid. But the more deeply the detective investigates the missing man's whereabouts, the more adament become the measures of his immediate family to block all attempts to communicate with the soldier's friend. The father insists his son has left on a trip around the world, and the people in the surrounding town seem to support the father's story. But there is something amiss, and Holmes shall get to the truth, whatever the consequences.