In this story it is the young wife of a wealthy old man, whose grown children resent their new stepmother and fear for their inheritance. The woman's husband is cruel and the older children conspire to have her appear in the worst light. Desperate, she goes to bizarre lengths to improve her existence but they lead only to her imprisonment in a home for mentally deranged women. As she is being forcibly carried out of the house she appeals to Detective Inspector Murdoch, the richly drawn and thoroughly human and likeable policeman around whom the stories all figure. He is on the scene investigating the presumed suicide of a young patrolman.