Dr. Eustace Hailey, that urbane investigator of apparently lost causes, is presented with a most unusual case at the outset of this story. Daphne Homewell insists that she has murdered her uncle and wishes the doctor to prove her case to the police so that her sister and prospective brother-in- law will not be arrested. But Dr. Hailey knows better and only consents to investigate provided the girl gives up her foolish ideas.

The murder of Homewell, the shipping magnate, was indeed an extraordinary one. In full view of a number of spectators he was apparently stabbed to death while driving off the first tee at his golf course. Important photographs taken during the course of Homewell's swing show that this was impossible. How, therefore, was Homewell stabbed? The patience of Dr. Hailey and Colonel Wickham of Scotland Yard is sorely tried. The solution is, however, brilliantly worked out in the doctor's own inimitable fashion to the accompaniment of a prodigious quantity of snuff.