Four British holiday makers in Italy are enjoying a quiet game of monopoly on the terazza of their holiday villa in Tuscany when a screech of car brakes and a crash of windscreen glass heralds the arrival of Humphrey Biddulph. Dressed in pyjamas, slippers and an ungainly baseball jacket, Biddulph is a figitive employee of The Vatican and an expert in ancient manuscripts. He relates a tale that concludes that Jesus Christ was simply an itinerant Jewish healer and that the Resurrection was a carefully arranged fabrication. Biddulph disclosed his finding to the authorities and was locked up in a secure hospital from where he has escaped.