Readers may be familiar with Boston's blue-blooded Sarah Kelling, of the Beacon Hill Kellings, from THE FAMILY VAULT. Financial difficulties have obliged her to rent out parts of her brownstone to various characters. A particularly annoying one, Barnwell Augustus Quiffen, has now ceased to occupy the drawing room suite. This should be much to her delight, but the new occupant is vexing in his own way, and there are those who say that Quiffen was murdered. Sarah realizes that she is going to be caught up in another murder case, and she will need the particular talents of her lodgers and her eccentric relatives if she is going to come out the other side.