An English businessman is on the Ostend-Vienna Express making his way to a important meeting. Two women enter his compartment; one is a beautiful young American woman, the other a frosty elderly Austrian woman played by Oscar-winner Dame Peggy Ashcroft. What follows on the overnight journey has a profound effect on the Englishman. The story is based on Poliakoff's own experience as he travelled from London to Vienna at the age of 25.