Deadly serious young private detective Adrian Mulliner looks like an underdog when he takes on the British aristocracy.

On doctor's orders, he goes in smiling.

""Tonight's story, Trouble Down at Tudsleigh, is about Freddie Widgeon of whom it's been said that if all the girls he's loved and lost were laid end to end they would reach from Piccadilly Circus to Hyde Park Corner, possibly further, for many of them were quite tall, as indeed was April Carroway whom Freddie met while on a duty visit to Lady Carroway at Tudsleigh Court...""

One look at April Carroway and Freddie Widgeon falls hard.

To impress her, he does battle with the perplexing Lady of Shallott and April's dangerous younger sister, Prudence.

Passionate but penniless Adolphus ""Stiffy"" Stiffham seeks his fortune in America to win the hand of his love, Lady Geraldine.

But he doesn't appear to have a ghost of a chance of succeeding...

""Tonight's story, 'The Editor Regrets', concerns Bingo Little, the husband of best-selling novelist Rosie M. Banks and editorial force behind 'Wee Tots', that popular and influential journal which has done so much to mold thought in the nursery and has now led to a sort of literary renaissance at the Drones Club"".

Revelling in his fame as editor of Wee Tots magazine, Bingo Little is the toast of his club.

Trouble ensures when he brushes off an American children's author being pursued by his boss..

""Tonight's story, 'Big Business', is about Reginald Mulliner, a young man of slender means and slighter intellect who before the dramatic change in his fortunes had only two assets in his life -the love of Amanda Biffen and the ability to sing Old Man River, a talent we discover him exercising in anticipation of the annual church concert in the village of Lower Smattering On The Whistle,Worcestershire...""

Agreeably addle-brained Reginald Mulliner loses a fortune and a girl while preparing for his big moment on stage at the Christmas show.

But from the depths of despair, he finds a new voice...

Tonight's story, Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo tells of the Reverend Augustine's experience with a wonder tonic capable of transforming a pale young curate, timidly in love with his vicar's daughter, into a - but let's start at the beginning, with our pale young curate ....