Philip Castleford was more than worried. Were all those years he had spent attending to Winifred’s whims, enduring her habits, to count for nothing? He hadn’t minded it too much for he thought that his daughter Hilary would have security - but now he found her shabbily treated and his own position undermined by his wife’s grasping brothers.

Such were the affairs at Carron Hill one fine morning when Winifred was discovered murdered in the deserted summer house …