The young Mrs Castleford holds the purse strings over her husband, half-sister, stepdaughter and former brothers-in-law due to the wealth she inherited from her late first husband. When she is found shot dead on a chalet on the edge of her country estate, Inspector Westerham is called in to investigate. He discovers the deceased had recently destroyed her first will and was in the process of replacing it with a second, favoring her brothers-in-law rather than her current husband for whom she had grown contemptuous. Gradually, the Inspector's suspicions point towards the lady's husband, an out-of-work artist.
However, an appeal by the accused's daughter to Sir Clinton Driffield's friend Wendover brings them both on to the case.