The mysterious recluse Eric Crowther was murdered, he lived in the gaunt house whose shadow fell across the White Cottage, much as the man himself overshadowed the lives of the occupants of the little white house. Indeed, as Detective Chief Inspector W.T. Challoner soon discovered, seven people had good cause to murder him. Everyone ought to have done it, but by the evidence nobody had. The seven suspects, all with excellent motives for killing the hateful Eric Crowther. So it was not lack of evidence but rather a surfeit of it which sent Challoner and his son Jerry half across Europe in pursuit of the trail. He collected their secrets. And he used them. But whick of these long-time sufferers had found the courage to pull the trigger? And should this benefactor really be prosecuted?

The White Cottage Mystery was Margery Allingham's first detective story, published initially as a newspaper serial in 1927.