On a rainy day in London’s Camden Passage, cotland Yard superintendent Richard Jury meets a pretty, troubled widow, Jane Holdsworth.  He’s drawn into a passionate affair with her – and becomes a suspect in a murder investigation.  Unable to leave London, Jury sends Melrose Plant, eight Earl of Caverness to the Lake District to pry open the Holdsworth family’s box of secrets.  Posing as an eccentric librarian, Plant accumulates a sheaf of shocking surprises about the Holdsworth clan and its growing number of orphans.  The solution doesn’t emerge until Jury and Sergeant Wiggins join Plant at the Old Contempibles pub for a stiff draught of cold reality.