From the dust jacket of the first edition: “Behind the ominous walls of Jamaica Court, Anthea Vine ruled as a provincial Queen Elizabeth, imperious and wealthy, vain and pathetic. She lived in an aura of illusion—the illusion of her own fatal charms and her eternal powers of fascination. Her charms, however, proved fatal to none hut herself. For in the town below. while townsmen set their watches by the light in her bedroom window, Florence Pye read in the cards, “Death to an old woman. Her prophesy came true, silently and violently in the depths of the night. What Miss Pye had not foreseen was that she would be the first to find the body. This is a macabre, fascinating story of love, frustration and jealousy bred in the gloomy house on the hill. Anthea held chained to her in financial dependence five discontented souls, all with a motive for murder. Her possessive tentacles reached beyond her three wards, virtually imprisoned at Jamaica Court. They drew into their clutches her secretary, Sally Morgan, and the sardonically charming local doctor. Bumbling inspector Pye barely saved his constabulary reputation, by solving the murder at the eleventh hour with the aid of a Dresden figurine, a missing Chinese vase and a broken teacup. Fate was in the cards but the dénouement is reached with agonizing suspense and sharp surprise. In this new mystery tale humor and excitement, horror and romance are breathlessly combined as only Ethel Lina White can combine them.”