An enigmatic young woman named Laura Dousland stands on trial for murder, accused of poisoning her elderly husband, Fordish. It seems clear that the poison was delivered in a flask of Chianti with supper, but according to the couple's servant in the witness-box, the flask disappeared the night Fordish died, and all attempts to trace it have come to nothing. The jury delivers its verdict, but this is just the end of the beginning of Marie Belloc Lowndes's gripping story.