Mark Ablett’s stately mansion, the Red House, is filled with very proper guests when his most improper brother returns from Australia. The prodigal brother enters Mark’s study, the parlor maid hears arguing, and the brother dies—rather suddenly, with a bullet between his eyes. The study is locked from the inside, and Mark is missing!

Investigating the crime is wealthy Antony Gillingham, who rivals Sherlock Holmes in his remarkable powers of observation. His friend, Bill Beverley, a cheerful young man in white flannels, aids him. Echoes of Christopher Robin and his friends chime nostalgically throughout this charming classic of detection!

Between games of billiards and bowls, the taking of tea, and other genteel pursuits, Gillingham and Beverley explore the possibilities in a light-hearted series of capers involving secret passageways, underwater evidence, and other atmospheric devices.