Having extricated an advance out of his publisher he heads to Oxford for a week’s holiday, setting off late. The train halts in Didcot and he hitchhikes a lift the rest of the way arriving around midnight. Dropped at the edge of the city, he walks in. Drawn to a shop whose awning has been left down, idle curiosity leads him to try the door. Finding it unlocked he enters an empty toyshop, then climbs the stairs to flat above where he discovers the body of an old woman who’s been strangled. Just as he’s leaving he’s knocked unconscious. Waking four hours later he makes his escape and heads for a police station. When they return to the shop it is no longer a toyshop but a grocer’s and there’s no sign of a body. Had Cadogan been dreaming or had an elderly woman been murdered the night before? His Oxford don friend, Gervase Fen, decides to investigate, convinced of foul-play.