In Depression-era New York, an impoverished painter has a chance encounter with an enigmatic, old-fashioned little girl in Central Park who inspires him and changes his destiny.
Beginning with the forced marriage of Glencora (Susan Hampshire), the lives of the friends and children of this couple are the subject of study. The backdrop is the House of Commons in England as we watch the comings and goings and loves and tragedies of the powerful and not-so-powerful.
In 1930s England, a man from an aristocratic family takes up the pseudonym Albert Campion and, with the help of his ex-burglar manservant, solves mysteries.