Colonel Wickham Gore has just returned from Africa and is looking forward to a reunion with old friends in the town of Westmouth. But things have changed while Gore has been away. First, he is alarmed to find that his old flame, 'Pickles', now the wife of a local doctor, has become the victim of a ruthless blackmailer. When her antagonist is found dead from heart failure, it seems the situation has been miraculously resolved. Soon, however, new evidence suggests that the man was murdered, and Gore is forced to acknowledge that one of his old friends may have become a killer...

Originally published in 1924, this classic British murder mystery from the golden age of crime fiction is the first in a series of cases featuring Lynn Brock's celebrated detective, Colonel Gore.