Anthony Cade is a young man who makes a living as well as he can while seeking out his next great adventure. An old friend offers him a simple task to do for a nice amount of money, and Anthony agrees. The task is to deliver to a publisher the memoirs written by a statesman of Herzoslovakia, a fictional country where monarchists are battling populists. Anthony's effort becomes complicated by these competing groups who are ready to kill to advance their side's ambitions.

Anthony teams up with a scrappy Englishwoman and together they head off to Chimneys, one of those Edwardian manor houses where politics were negotiated in 1925, the year this book was published. Murder ensues, and nobody seems to be who they claim they are, including Anthony Cade.