Murder gets into the act in Ngaio Marsh's wittiest and most readable novel—and a Shakespearean actor takes his final bow.

Beautiful Troy Alleyn, artist wife of Inspector Alleyn, had been warned about the famed old Shakespearean actor Sir Henry and his eccentric household. But she was not prepared for the acts of malice and mischief that would ensue at his birthday party.

Now Sir Henry is dead, after a large and lethal birthday dinner of champagne and crayfish—and after changing his will in favor of his glamorous young fiancée. And Troy is suddenly star witness in one of her husband's most sensational cases. Together, the Alleyns must determine which of the flamboyant characters at Sir Henry's house brought down the final curtain and turned a drawing room farce into tragedy.