Professor Alistair Dirke thought himself a reasonable man - he could scarcely acknowledge the suspicion that was beginning to grow in his mind every time he saw his wife Rose with Paul Eckleston ...Paul seemed to be there very often these days. Yet soon a more terrible suspicion was to grow and spread through the little community of Rollway, where the Dirkes had lived in peace with their neighbours. A valuable collection of coins goes missing and then a man is murdered.