"You know, there's a certain piquancy in living with relations who most fervently wish one dead!"
James Henstone is an invalid. He is also a vindictive old man who enjoys taunting his servants and relatives. Henstone is cared for by his nephew Mark, but announces his intention to make a will leaving everything to Mark's second cousin Francis. There is a catch, however - Francis is to lose his place in Henstone's firm, making it impossible to marry his beloved Kathleen until the old man dies.
But when Henstone is poisoned, his cryptic dying words indicate that he may have been even more scheming than his relatives had ever suspected. Who murdered him? And what is the secret of Broughton House?
Originally published in 1945, this is a vintage murder mystery from the golden age of crime fiction.