Author of detective novels, Priscilla Pringle, is pleased to find that she is sharing a railway compartment with a gentleman who happens to be reading one of her books - Murder in the Cathedral. He offers her œ500 to collaborate on a detective novel.

Appleby's End was where Detective Inspector John Appleby got off the train from Scotland Yard. But that was not the only coincidence. Why did Ranulph Raven's mysterious descendants make such a point of inviting Appleby to spend the night at their house?

During a walk to Elvedon House, palatial home of the Tythertons, Sir John Appleby and Chief Constable Colonel Pride are stunned to find a police van and two cars parked outside. Wealthy Maurice Tytherton has been found shot dead, and Appleby is faced with a number of suspects.

Arbuthnot is paying for a rash decision - he recently married a beautiful but slightly amoral girl whose crazy antics caught his rather cynical professional interest. His wife has taken a lover, Rupert Slade, and Arbuthnot wants nothing more than to see him dead - but then it happens!

Sir John Appleby dines one evening at Allington Park, the Georgian home of his acquaintance Owain Allington. The evening comes to an end but just as Appleby is leaving, they find a dead man - electrocuted in the son et lumiŠre box which had been installed in the grounds.

There are fifteen stories in this compelling collection, including: Poltergeist - when Appleby's wife tells him that her aunt is experiencing trouble with a Poltergeist, he is amused but dismissive, until he discovers that several priceless artefacts have been smashed as a result.

Clusters, a great country house, is troubled by bats, as Lord and Lady Osprey complain to their guests. Appleby is indifferent, but he is soon faced with a real challenge - the murder of Lord Osprey, stabbed with an ornate dagger in the library.