Each episode adapts — and sometimes quite radically alters — a short story written by Wells: The New Accelerator, The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper, The Crystal Egg, The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes, The Truth About Pyecraft and The Stolen Bacillus. Each is presented as if it were a 'real' incident that Wells had investigated with his girlfriend, Jane Robbins, and as if it had served as an inspiration for a short story. The flashbacks are to 1893 within the 1946 frame story, near the end of Wells's life, when he is interviewed by a secret military research institute interested in his past exploits.

Abel Grey is sent to investigate the death of a boy from an exclusive local school, who is found floating in the river. Fearing scandal, the school insists it was suicide. But after discovering from the boy's girlfriend, Carlin, that he was being badly bullied, Abel suspects that a dangerous schoolboy initiation has gone horribly wrong and he secretly solicits the help of a sympathetic teacher, Betsy. He is warned off the investigation by his boss, as the school is a generous benefactor to the Police benevolent fund. Abel, however, cannot let the case go, not only because his own brother committed suicide years before, but also it seems that the spirit of the dead boy is leaving them clues as to what really happened that night.

Photographer Charles Castle is numbed with grief following the death of his beautiful bride. He goes off to war, working in the trenches as a photographer. Following the war and still in grief Charles is given some photographs purporting to be of fairies. His search for the truth leads him to Burkinwell, a seemingly peaceful village seething with secrets where he becomes drawn into a web of passion, romance and violence..