Colonel Stok, a Soviet intelligence officer responsible for security at the Berlin Wall, appears to want to defect but the evidence is contradictory. Stok wants the British to handle his defection and asks for one of their agents, Harry Palmer, to smuggle him out of East Germany.
After falling in love with an American woman, Virginia Killain, who is engaged to another man, British Naval Commander Max Easton, hatches a plan that will get him enough money to support Virginia in the lifestyle she is accustomed to. Easton's plan is to disappear for a time making it seem that he has defected to the Soviets taking important Naval secrets from his job at the Admiralty and to return and sue the newspapers for slander. Not everything goes as planned for Commander Easton.
Upstairs: the wealthy, aristocratic Bellamys. Downstairs: their loyal and lively servants. For nearly 30 years, they share a fashionable townhouse at 165 Eaton Place in London’s posh Belgravia neighborhood, surviving social change, political upheaval, scandals, and the horrors of the First World War.
