Miss Silver is asked to go and do some surreptitious investigating in a small town where 2 women have disappeared and some spying is being investigated. Whether the two are related is what Miss Silver is to find out. When she gets to the little village of Hazel Green, Miss Silver meets the various townfolk: Mr. Craig Lester, a publishing agent, Florrie, a maid who seems to know all the gossip in the town; Miss Rosamund and Miss Jenny Maxwell, two sisters whose parents died leaving them to be raised with their domineering aunt, Lydia Crewe, the Cunningham family and the list goes on and on. As Miss Silver knits, the facts of the case become clearer to her until she is at last able to solve the mystery.