John Jasper is a brooding, moody choirmaster at a finishing school in Victorian England, but maintains a secret life in an opium den. He becomes obsessed with a young student, Rosa Bud, who is engaged to his nephew Edwin Drood, and she senses the intensity Jasper's feelings and is frightened of him. When the mixed-blooded Neville Landless and his twin sister Helena arrive at the school from Ceylon, Neville and Edwin take an immediate dislike to one another as Neville feels that Edwin takes his engagement too lightly. Although they quarrel and make up, Edwin disappears, and suspicion falls on the quick-tempered Neville.