Sir Clinton Driffield, hardened solver of many a knotty problem, was playing chess with his old friend, Wendover, when their game was interrupted by the news that a dead man had been found in a lane near by. When it turned out to be the body of a hack journalist, with a reputation for always being hard-up and for writing a particularly revealing type of biography, and a hundred pounds in notes was found near the body, blackmail was naturally suggested, and the tracing of the money back to an unpopular local land-owner, whose family had many a skeleton in the cupboard, pointed strongly to murder. But death struck again, and Sir Clinton did not clear up the tragic affair as quickly as he had hoped.
