The wealthy old woman died much sooner than the doctor expected. Did she suddenly succumb to illness—or was it murder? The debonair detective Lord Peter Wimsey begins to investigate, with the help of his trusted manservant, Bunter, and Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson, a gossipy spinster with a gift for asking the right questions. The intricate trail leads from a beautiful Hampshire village to a fashionable London flat, where a deliberate test of amour, staged by the detective, will expose the elusive truth once and for all.