In January 1892, an Ilminster bank manager called William Lidderdale caught a train to London where he was meeting a surveyor to discuss a property he wanted to buy. He took just over £1,000 in cash but nothing else. He was due to be married in a week. He was never seen again

Everyone was baffled and the story reached the newspapers. Where could such a respectable man have gone?

A month after he had last been seen, a notice appeared in several newspapers to announce that Lidderdale had died aboard the yacht of Miss Vining, where he had been taken "after an accident while alighting from a moving carriage."

The problem? No such yacht existed. Nor had anyone but Lidderdale ever met Miss Vining; several of his friends had heard of her, but no-one had seen her. Nor did she live at the address listed on the notice; nor was there any evidence of an accident or of Lidderdale's death

At the same time, Lidderdale's fiancee, Bessie Chapman received a package containing half the money he’d taken to London, a Christmas card she had sent him, a souvenir coin she had exchanged, and three visiting cards of “Miss Vining”. On one was written: “Was true to you.”

Was this a confession? A goodbye? A red herring? The answer was never discovered, but someone wanted the world to think Lidderdale was dead.

Wild theories began to circulate. Miss Vining had kidnapped Lidderdale; he had willingly chosen her over his fiancee; he was genuinely dead… Or perhaps Miss Vining didn't exist at all and he had fabricated the whole episode.

Solicitors became involved. There were press appeals to Miss Vining and enquiries set in motion to trace the people who Lidderdale had gone to meet. But no trace of him could be found after the day he arrived in London.

Meanwhile, away from the newspaper frenzy, it emerged that Lidderdale was over £900 overdrawn and owed several people money, including his own sister who went to court around a month after his disappearance to reclaim the money he owed her. That was not the only oddity.

But the story faded from memory… until 15 years later an old friend of Lidderdale began an ultimately fruitless attempt to have him declared dead so that his will — which after insurance policies had been claimed would be worth over £3,000 — could be proved.

The only two people to keep looking? The old friend (who happened to be the executor of his will) and his abandoned fiancee. Those two alone kept the faith. Lidderdale's family barely showed any interest in finding him or concern about his fate

And yet after numerous appearances in court and the hunting down of every trace of evidence, the case went nowhere. The result? No body. No yacht. No Miss Vining. No answers. Only evidence of a man who was secretly in trouble and disappeared rather than face the consequences