One cold morning in early January, Alfred Kinder, a truck driver, set out before daybreak to pick up his vehicle and start the day's work. But someone had been there before him. In the back of the truck was slumped the body of a dead man.

Superintendent "Jimmy" Waghorn of New Scotland Yard, sent down to investigate the case, found he had a murder on his hands. The investigation was a difficult one, because Walter Hanslope, as the murdered man proved to be, seemed to have led a quiet life in the little village of Derivale. A widower of independent means, his main interests were good wines and comfortable living; and if he had made few friends, there seemed to be no one who disliked him enough to go to the lengths of murder.

But by following up every clue, however slight, Jimmy Waghorn (with some helpful advice from Dr. Priestley) discovered one or two interesting facts about Hanslope, and these discoveries led, in their turn, to a picture of life far different from that of a country gentleman - and far more in tune with the act of murder.