Days before the outbreak of WW2, in the great house of one of London’s famous socialite hostesses, a guest is shot dead in his bedroom.
The local CID, aware of the prominence and influence of the owner and her typical guests, passes the matter to Scotland Yard.
The case is given to Chief Inspector David Adair and two of his colleagues.
Adair finds that none of the other guests knew the victim, or at least hadn’t seen him since his childhood. None of the servants had ever met him at all.
The detectives’ first job was to find a motive – and that would not prove an easy task.