At the beginning of the novel several characters formerly seen in Huntingtower and Castle Gay are about to go to Europe for the summer: Dickson McCunn to a German Kurhaus for his health; Alison Westwater to join her parents Lord and Lady Rhynns at Unnutz in Germany; Archie Roylance to attend a dull conference in Geneva along with his wife Janet; John 'Jaikie' Galt on a walking tour; and Dougal Crombie on a mission for his newspaper.

An old friend of Jaikie's, the journalist Dougal Crombie, interviews Ashie and relays details of the situation in Evallonia to Dickson McCunn who is recuperating in Germany.

Unable to gain access to the castle because of the Juventus picketers, McCunn is just leaving when his car narrowly avoids a collision with another vehicle containing Archie, Janet and Alison.

McCunn suggests that he could himself play the stalking horse role, impersonating the elderly Archduke Hadrian, the late king's brother who is currently living quietly in France.

In the resultant fracas Mastrovin is shot dead, Countess Araminta becomes attracted to Prince John, believing that he saved her life, and Alison realises that she loves Jaikie.

The New Statesman and Nation thought it "disappointing, too involved and too ruritanian", and considered it to occupy "a rather low point" in Buchan's output, a view that later critics have not substantially challenged.

[2] Punch, however, thought that "readers of Huntingtower and Castle Gay will welcome old friends in this delectable narrative of the tangled policies of Evallonia", and that no-one will complain that "the long-bow of romance is often drawn by the long arm of coincidence when the mark is well and truly hit".