It's 1786, and Joseph Bloxham is a self-made man and something of a star in fashionable coffee-house society. Some, though, like the sceptical Noakes take a dim view of his shady business ethics. Bloxham has used his ill-gotten gains to buy the old Geap Manor, paying no heed to the warnings of Noakes and his friend Duncalfe, but when Bloxham starts to hear ghastly sounds in the newly-installed panelling of his drawing room it seems he might have more than just a mouse hiding in his wainscoting.

In the 1920s, Lady Constance de Momery presides over a costume ball for her grandson, but all is not as it seems and when young heir to the estate Felix de Momery announces his engagement to sweetheart Ruth, his friends Billy and Katherine seem far from pleased.