Lord Peter wimsey falls in love with Harriet Vane, an amateur sleuth, as she stands in the dock of Old Bailey. She is on trial for the murder of her lover.

After a social visit to a grand estste - during which thieves make off with another guest's valuable jewels - a young, war-bound Peter Wimsey expects he will never have cause to return to the quiet village. But twenty years later, he and Bunter are stranded there after an auto mishap ; and a second crime there seems to have connections to the first.