In the village of Payling, England, the bodies of a farmer and builder are found drained of blood, their throats slashed with two deep puncture wounds over the jugular veins. The local police call in Scotland Yard, but they make little progress—until Peter Malden begins to suspect some sinister connection with the death of his wife Elsie's first husband, George, who's supposedly committed suicide. But Elsie herself is foully murdered in the same way as the others—and her coffin, like George's, is found to be empty! Is there a vampire at work in Payling? A gripping mystery-horror tale by a master storyteller.