An old woman collapses in Exeter Cathedral while examining one of the famous petit point medallions that are the pride of the locals. A woman's corpse is found in Salisbury. And in London, another woman dies of presumed natural causes. But there are no natural causes in the world where Chief Superintendent Jury of Scotland Yard operates.
Is there a connection between these three deaths? Of course. Jury is convinced that the city of Santa Fe, on the other side of the Atlantic, is the link between the three women. And he entrusts his friend Melrose Plant, an aristocrat and amateur detective, with continuing the investigation in London while he leaves for the United States. There, he will discover an astonishing imbroglio involving greed, murder, and gratuitous violence.