The pageant was held, amid great ceremony and pomp, at Frimley Manor, and it featured the reenactment of Queen Anne's visit to the great country estate in 1705. Visitors flocked to see the lavishly costumed affair, especially the ritual carrying of Queen Anne in a sedan chair from the entrance gate of the estate to the front steps of the great house. Mrs. Cresswell, a guest of Sir Harry Lynwood, Lord of Frimley Manor, grandly impersonated the Queen, dazzling the crowd with her spectacular pearl necklace.
But her performance in the sedan chair would soon be upstaged. In the dead of night, under an eerily fading moon, the chair would be discovered with a new occupant: a dying man, whose last words were "The... line."
The shocking discovery is made by Captain Roger Bristow, ex-member of the Secret Service and an astute solver of crimes. His acumen is nearly matched by that of Superintendent Kinch, official investigator of the murder, which crime is further complicated by the theft of Mrs. Cresswell's pearl necklace.
The investigation focuses on two suspects. Sonia Fullinger, a close friend of Sir Harry's daughter, is strongly linked to the crimes by circumstantial evidence, despite her indignant protestations. Leonard Curtis, the wayward nephew of a local vicar, is also a prime candidate for indictment if his improbable alibi turns out to be false.
Clues abound - a piece of gold lace, a lost handkerchief, a key, an abandoned car - but fitting them together into a logical explanation for the unpleasant events that took place at Frimley Manor requires substantial intuitive and deductive powers. The dastardly deeds are probably related, but the exact details only come to light after an inspired and meticulous investigation, comprised of much shrewd speculation and old-fashioned police legwork.
Readers who enjoy such a challenge, in the context of a gracefully written and ingeniously constructed crime novel, will welcome this classic from the Golden Age of British mystery fiction.