Benjamin Bathurst, a British diplomat, disappears whilst staying at an inn in Prussia. Piper describes Bathurst in the story as "a rather stout gentleman, of past middle age." However, the real Bathurst was born in 1784, and thus 25 years old at the time of his disappearance.
This story posits that Bathurst slipped into a parallel universe. This event was referenced in the Paratime story "Police Operation", also written by Piper. The point of divergence from our history is the Battle of Quebec on December 31, 1775 in which Benedict Arnold is killed instead of merely wounded, leading to the victory of British General John Burgoyne over his American counterpart Horatio Gates at the Battles of Saratoga on September 19 and October 7, 1777. Consequently, the American Revolution and the French Revolution were both failures and there were no Napoleonic Wars.