In 1939, Sir Robert Thorndyke takes aim at Adolf Hitler with a high powered rifle, but the shot misses its mark. Captured and tortured by the Gestapo and left for dead, Sir Robert makes his way back to England where he discovers the Gestapo has followed him. Knowing that his government would turn him over to German authorities, Sir Robert goes underground in his battle with his pursuers.
An incompetent boarding school headmaster, Professor Jim Edwards, devises a bizarre plot to raise the profile of his boarding school, and thus save his job, by passing off his bookie's son as a Middle Eastern prince. The headmaster's madcap scheme is further complicated when an official from the Foreign Office arrives and announces that a real prince is to be placed under Edwards supervision, not due to the schools lofty reputation, but that a gang of kidnappers are unlikely to look for the regal child there.
Naive Stanley Windrush returns from the war, his mind set on a successful career in business. Much to his own dismay, he soon finds he has to start from the bottom and work his way up, and also that the management as well as the trade union use him as a tool in their fight for power.
In Tiger Bay, the docklands of Cardiff, rough-and-tumble street urchin Gillie witnesses the brutal killing of a young woman at the hands of visiting Polish sailor Korchinsky. Instead of reporting the crime to the authorities, Gillie merely pockets a prize for herself — Korchinsky's shiny black revolver — and flees the scene. When Detective Graham discovers that Gillie has the murder weapon, the fiery young girl weaves a web of lies to throw him off course.