Jack is visited by former schoolmate, teacher Sid Meek, who is in touch with Bill Pierce, Matt's nephew, now a brilliant law student at Oxford and in financial straits. Sid, secretly in love with Bill, asks Jack to investigate which takes him to Oxford where he meets Bill at a charity ball hosted by Labour philanthropist Violet Laurence, who occasionally pays Bill for 'favours'. Bill, heavily in debt, considers dropping out of his course to take manual work with his girlfriend's father but Jack loans him the money, attracting the attention of Mrs Laurence's niece Imogen Lorrimer, visiting from London.