Dispatched to stern Granny Flannagan's when their sick, widowed mother goes away for three months of treatment, Eddie, age 15, and Penny, twelve, are propelled into mystery and danger, gothic-style, on the 1890 British coast. The villain is Hal Kemp, Granny's grown nephew, ostensibly a fish peddler. Petty smuggling in goods is common on the coast, but Kemp's traffic is bairns, the female kind (white slavery, that is); and dauntless Eddie nearly loses his life exposing the ring and saving his kidnapped sister. Granny proves a surprisingly sturdy and resourceful ally, and in a mushy windup Eddie realizes that; he actually loves the old bird. Her trumpet, incidentally, is the ear kind, with which she brains Kemp. Creeky, cranked-up B-movie stuff, complete with noisy fistfights and broad acting (mouths agape, eyes wide).