When John Trenholme, artist, accepted a welcome commission from a magazine editor to journey down to a certain old Hertfordshire village and make a series of sketches of its imperiled beauties, he looked forward to nothing more exciting than an agreeable, wholly peaceful little expedition. Certainly he did not in the least expect to get mixed up with a murder, and to find himself one of the most important witnesses in "The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley."