Murder is hardly the best way for Lord Peter and his bride, the famous mystery writer Harriet Vane, to start their honeymoon. It all begins when the former owner of their newly acquired estate is found quite nastily dead in the cellar. And what Lord Peter had hoped would be a very private and romantic stay in the country soon turns into a most baffling case, what with the misspelled notise to the milkman and the intriguing condition of the dead man -- not a spot of blood on his smashed skull and not a pence less than six hundred pounds in his pocket.