When lovely Miranda Heath, suddenly penniless, turns for help to her father's old partner, Captain Bascomb, she finds herself plunged into a whirlpool of danger. From the moment of her arrival at the gloomy Bascomb mansion in the New England port Scots Harbor, Miranda becomes the target of a strange, hostile conspiracy.

She knows she must sift out the truth by herself. She can trust no one in the bizarre household; least of all the dour Brock McLean, whom the Captain insists she marry....