Cast of Characters

Jonathan Royal, of Highfold Manor, Cloudyfold, Dorset

Caper, his butler

Aubrey Mandrake, born Stanley Footling, Poetic Dramatist

Sandra Compline, of Penfelton Manor

William Compline, her elder son

Nicholas Compline, her younger son

Chloris Wynne, William’s fiancée

Dr. Francis Hart, a plastic surgeon

Madame Elise Lisse, beauty specialist, of the Studio Lisse

Lady Hersey Amblington, Jonathan’s distant cousin, beauty specialist of the Salon Herséy

Thomas, a dancing footman

Mrs. Pouting, Jonathan’s housekeeper

James Bewling, an outside hand at Highfold

Thomas Bewling, his brother

Roderick Alleyn, Chief Detective-Inspector, C.I., New Scotland Yard

Agatha Troy Alleyn, his wife

Walter Copeland, Rector of Winton St. Giles

Dinah Copeland, his daughter

Fox, Detective-Inspector, C.I., New Scotland Yard

Detective-Sergeant Thompson, a photographic expert

Detective-Sergeant Bailey, a finger-print expert

A Housemaid

Superintendent Blandish, of the Great Chipping Constabulary

On the afternoon of a Thursday early in 1940 Jonathan Royal sat in his library at Highfold Manor. Although daylight was almost gone, curtains were not yet drawn across the windows, and Jonathan Royal could see the ghosts of trees moving in agitation against torn clouds and a dim sequence of fading hills. The north wind, blowing strongly across an upland known as Cloudyfold, was only partly turned by Highfold woods.