On his train back to Scotland for a well-earned rest, Inspector Grant learns that a fellow passenger, one Charles Martin, has been found dead. It looks like a case of misadventure - but Grant is not so sure. Teased by some enigmatic lines of verse that the deceased had apparently scrawled on a newspaper, he follows a trail to the remote Outer Hebrides.

And though it is the end of his holiday, it is also the beginning of an intriguing investigation into the bizarre circumstances shrou ...