Featuring the popular Detective Best When Phoebe Threapleton is found dead on a four-poster bed in Bainbridge's department store with six long-stemmed white roses next to her, Inspector Best is baffled. His initial investigations point him towards the shadowy world of spiritualism, but this proves as difficult to penetrate as the potential motives of the dozens of suspects ? from Phoebe's maid to the Bainbridges themselves.