Amanda Vail had returned to the great house on the New England cliffs to claim it as her legacy under the terms of her great-uncle's will. But the Laytons, caretakers of the mansion, treated her as an intruder, insisting that the estate was rightfully theirs according to the terms of another---and later---will made by old Jasper Vail. Fearful of what these avaricious people might do to her, Amanda turned for help to two men: Bill Atherton, an artist who had begun a painting of her five years ago and who had involved her in suspicious gossip when his wife disappeared, and Hugh Marley, a handsome writer living on the Vail estate and hiding from....Amanda didn't know what. A sudden and horrifying discovery caused Amanda to turn on both men and run for her life!