During the cricket match of prestigious boys school Kemble Martyrs's annual festival, pupil May Lewis from the adjoining girls' school is hospitalized, badly beaten. Due to blood traces on his bat, inspector Mallory arrests head boy Daniel Gates, her secret lover, and the grandson of stern headmaster Philip Hart, who frequently canes but feels this firmly forbidden affair deserves lashing the dreaded rope cat onto Daniel's backside. Brown works out that deputy head master Sefton Scott has a discrete affair with the girls principal, while the silent grounds keeper Jack Coll, who wears strapped-on metal front arm races, is later found beaten to death in his barn dwelling. Brown clears Daniel and ties everything to a tragedy years before.
—KGF Vissers