Inspector McLean finds himself in a case of crime mixed up with art. Why was a picture stolen while in transit from London's Royal Academy to its purchaser? By what occult means did the Royal Academy artist depict with detailed accuracy the interior of a room in a country house he had never entered? And why the excavations in a Cornish garden following the mysterious disappearance of the painter's lovely young wife? The Inspector's search for the answers moves from the cliffs of Cornwall to the lagoons of Venice.