'I don't know how you do it,' grumbled Chief Inspector Nobby Roberts. 'You're a sort of magnet for corpses. Especially if they're involved in the fine art trade.'

He was addressing his old college chum Tim Simpson and he had good reason to feel aggrieved. No sooner did Tim, in charge of the Art Investment Fund of White's Bank, set out to acquire a piece of furniture by Richard Norman Shaw, the late nineteenth-century's most brilliant domestic architect, than his first informant was murdered. On past experience Nobby feared he might not be the last.

His fears were justified, but it was hardly Tim's fault. In the intervals of negotiating the purchase of a timber business for the Bank he merely charged about the country visiting Shaw houses in quest of the work that had disappeared from under his nose. He claimed he had no responsibility for the unfortunate and unrelated events which happened while he was pursuing information in his own time, but it was increasingly difficult to convince Nobby of that, let alone his superiors at the Bank. And least of all Sue Westerman, who had been involved in his inquiries before and was now positively demanding t be part of them because they were part of his life'