Publisher's Synopsis
This is another Sherlockian mystery from the inimitable author of A Taste for Honey and Reply Paid. And once again the meticulous Mr. Mycroft plays the role of detective. The setting is simplicity itself. Here is a lovely arbour in a quiet Shropshire garden. There lies the body of a man killed by the thrust of a slender instrument identifiable as an antique hairpin. Was it really suicide, as Mr. Mycroft's colleague believes? In his quest for the answer, Mr. Mycroft take us from the antiquarian gentility of twin Shropshire houses, through the haunts of a munitions runner and "hotels" of prostitution, to the continent-wide reaches of the slave trade. With him go his friends - among them a murderer - exploring, in the depths of the human mind and soul, motivations and events more uncanny and more sinister than the gentle lady - whose coil of hair the notched hairpin originally must have held--could ever have dreamed of. The result is a mystery as unique as Mr. Heard's other famed tales and one that will evoke the shades of Baker Street.
