The tenth gripping mystery to feature Ursula Blanchard, special aide to Queen Elizabeth I. Happily married to her third husband, Ursula Blanchard is rudely shaken on receipt of a threatening letter from the exiled Anne Percy, Countess of Northumberland, whose treasonous plot against Elizabeth I, Ursula helped foil a few months previously. Ursula dismisses the Countess's letter as idle threats, but then a series of strange events...