Agatha Troy, world famous painter, is inveigled into accepting a commission to paint the 70-year-old Sir Henry Ancred. But just as she has completed her portrait, the old actor dies and Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn is called in.

New Zealand theatrical manager Alfred Meyer wanted to celebrate his wife's birthday in style. The pièce de résistance would be the jeroboam of champagne. But something went horribly wrong and Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn witnessed it himself.

One summer evening in 1942, Flossie Rubrick, goes to her husband's wool shed to rehearse a patriotic speech - and disappears. Three weeks later she turns up at an auction, packed inside one of her own bales of wool and very, very dead.

When a much disliked visiting servant disappears without trace after playing Santa Claus, foul play is at once suspected - and suspicion falls on the guests. The very thought that such a respectable bunch would commit murder seems like a heresy.

To amuse his house guests, Sir Hubert Handelsley devises a new form of murder game. But when the lights go up there is a real corpse, with a real dagger in its back. Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn has to try and find the murderer.