Kenneth Bycraft – a crook and swindler, whose speciality is selling spurious investments in worked-out mines. Grant Gleeson – a young Australian and the latest victim of Bycraft’s nefarious activities. Gleeson’s friend Arthur Norden has appealed to the lawyer Bill Bland for help in extricating Gleeson, and Bland in turn calls in Tolefree, who travels to Grindel House in the West Country to see what can be done. Before long, however, a body is discovered in Bunter’s Pond – and Tolefree’s sojourn becomes a murder investigation…