In 1884 Robert York, an official at the Foreign Office, is found brutally murdered in the library of his home in Hanover Close, Mayfair, seemingly the victim of a burglar caught in the act When, three years later, Inspector Pitt of Bow Street Police Station is asked to investigate, the murder remains unsolved Pitt's brief is to clear the reputation of the dead man's widow, Veronica, who is now contemplating marriage to Julian Danver, a former colleague of her late husband