A tranquil weekend party in early December at a magnificent country house is shattered by a suspicious death.  A young Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould must help her friend Isobel who has made a very cutting remark about Gwendolen Kilmuir on the night when she was supposed to be getting engaged.  Gwendolen flees the room and the next morning is found dead; suicide.  Isobel, accompanied by Vespasia, must make a journey of expiation to the Scottish Highlands, with an unexpected result...