As in Death and Letters, a young woman escapes from an oppressive family, in this case that of her husband, a lame war veteran she married a year before.He had grown cold to her, and had been violently angry when he found her with an account of a particular Victorian trial. She managed to escape with the aid of a nice young man (who promptly fell in love with her), ad took the case to Gamadge. He saw the book was the key to the case, but she did not know what it was. Meanwhile a harmless young workingman is murdered in circumstances implicating the brother and sister of her husband. Gamadge realizes the book id the case of the Tichbounre Claimant and recognizes an imposture is involved (as in Book of the Dead). In tis book Daly restrains her tendency to a sudden revelation of an unexpected ending --one witness's testimony suggests an unexpected result, but it turns out the expected villain is guilty after all. ( )