"This isn’t an ordinary murder. The dead man was the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the murder was in the House of Commons."

Amidst the excited bustle of Budget Day, the House of Commons is packed with people, eagerly awaiting the Chancellor's annual speech. But it is a speech he is destined never to finish - for before he is able to complete his address, Edgar Reardon falls to the floor, dead. When Inspector Ripple and Amos Petrie, the eccentric solicitor and detective, investigate the death, they find that Reardon has been poisoned - murdered in full view of the House. Battling pressure to keep any scandal to a minimum, Petrie uncovers a conspiracy that goes to the very heart of government - and a murder so ingenious as to shock even an investigator of his experience with its audacity.

Originally published in 1936, this is a vintage murder mystery from the golden age of crime fiction.