[1] Fatty has returned to Peterswood village from a cruise holiday, bringing Moroccan costumes for his friends Larry, Daisy, Pip and Bets.

Goon informs the district's senior police officer, Inspector Jenks, that he has met with the prince's relatives.

Realising the children's deception could jeopardize the police investigation, Fatty tells Goon the foreign party was not real.

Sid, whose verbal communication is hampered by his fondness for toffees that stick his teeth together, manages to tell Fatty that he saw the missing prince hiding in the base of a large double-pram, used by a woman for her twin babies at a caravan next to the boys' campsite.

As with all books in the Find-Outers Mystery series, the protagonists are Frederick Algernon Trotteville, known as Fatty; siblings Philip (Pip) and Elizabeth (Bets) Hilton; and siblings Laurence (Larry) and Margaret (Daisy) Daykin; as well as Fatty's dog, Buster.