In the vestry of St Matthew's Church, Paddington, two bodies are discovered. One is a tramp; the other is Sir Paul Berowne, a baronet and recently resigned government minister. Poet and detective Adam Dalgliesh investigates.
Dalgliesh knew Berowne slightly. Berowne had consulted him about a poison pen letter and an article in the Paternoster Review about two employees of the Berowne family who had died: Theresa Nolan, his mother's nurse who had killed herself after an abortion; and Diana Travers, his domestic servant, who had drowned.