Toray Castle, in the Western Isles of Scotland, is the proud home of McReay of Toray. But the laird has fallen on hard times following a disastrous attempt to save his son from financial ruin. Now his son is dead and two disparate groups of guests have arrived at the castle, hoping to purchase the ancestral pile. The handsome American millionaire Stephen Garrison and his entourage are soon joined by the Dutch businessman Oscar Berg and his unsavoury band of hangers-on - including a French lothario, the Vicomte d'Arenne, who claims to have been a friend of the laird's dead son. When it becomes clear that Berg and d'Arenne have a hold over the laird, Garrison is keen to intervene. But the situation is complicated immeasurably when d'Arenne is found dead in the Portcullis Room - murdered on the very spot, and on the very night, on which a former enemy of the McReays was killed by the laird's ancestors two centuries before...

Originally published in 1934, this is a classic murder mystery from the golden age of crime fiction.