Against her better judgement, Rina Martin accepts an invitation to Aikensthorpe, a country house hotel with a sinister reputation. Gathered there are a collection of experts in the esoteric; their plan is to re-enact the incident in 1872 that left one man dead and another mad. Rina, unimpressed by the company and their techniques, is relieved when her friend DI MacGregor comes to rescue her. But then a blizzard traps them in the house, and Edwin Holmes, grand old man of psychical research, is found murdered in his bed . . .