After the death of his wife, Arabella, Rod Lorton finds papers which reveal unpleasant facts about her. Lorton wants revenge and private detective William Dougal lends a hand, even coming up with a good plan.

The object of the revenge is PR chief Ivor Newley, owner of a rare collection of coins, all of which he has obtained by shady means. If the collection were to disappear Newley couldn’t go to the police and would be vulnerable to blackmail.

But Dougal has miscalculated - when it is time to collect there is no money, there is only a corpse…