[1] [2] It is the fifth and last in his series featuring amateur detective Francis Pettigrew, a retired barrister.

[4] While holidaying with his wife in Exmoor, Pettigrew comes across a body in a beauty spot he had last visited in his childhood.

A couple of days later the body reappears at another location nearby and is identified as a ne'er-do-well who is the estranged husband of the woman whose house they are staying at.

Mallet has retired to the district, but is hired to launch a private investigation by cousins of the deceased who believe the death may have been fraudulently concealed in order so that his wife and children should benefit from a large inheritance from his wealthy uncle.

The matter ends in a convoluted case before the Court of Chancery but Pettigrew is still set on solving the murder that the local Devon police have failed to do.