Harriet sets rules for Peregrine, soon has to use her cane. Poor Peregrine can't please ladies in his life. His piano teacher, spanks him with a violin bow, the housekeeper, thrashes him with her husband's belt. Peregrine's adjustment to his well ordered marriage takes place against the background of a major police investigation. Is there a link between the old woman who lurks unseen behind a curtain while Peregrine practises his scales and the perverted maniac who assaults young women on Wimbledon Common? He is first at the mercy first of Sgt Phyllis Cropper, horsewoman and skilled interrogator, then Dr Irma Bunt, Director of a secure facility for the criminally insane. Just when the order in his life breaks down, he finds true happiness in Dr Irma's rubber gloved hands. Others who humiliate, punish him are Matron of Honour at wedding; a sadistic, tawse-wielding Scots schoolmaster; Constable Prout, Margaret Doyle, who becomes a Vicar's wife whose slipper terrorises choir boys!