Mr Victor Stanworth, an apparently carefree sixty-year-old, is entertaining a party of friends at his summer residence, Layton Court. When one morning he is found shot dead in the library it is hard to believe it is either suicide or murder. As one of the country house guests, gentleman sleuth Roger Sheringham resolves to solve the murder. As he pursues the truth he does not conceal any of the evidence, and the reader is able to follow Sheringham's detection work to the conclusion of this original mystery story