The year is 1937 and just after the first semester/Christmas break, a fight between two boarding final year law students in Balliol College, Oxford University has come to the attention of the master, and the head of law faculty at the college. It was reported by the porter and all the known qualities of one student seems to run counter the evidence of the other. One student remains uncommunicative. It is at a time when Britain is reeling from the sudden abdication of King Edward the VIII and remains isolationist as Germany threatens to expand across Europe.