A Deadly Endowment

England's aristocracy is still struggling after the Great War, and Lady Phoebe Renshaw has found a way to raise money: she and her lady's maid, Eva Huntford, will open Foxwood Hall to paying guided tours. Several relatives consider the scheme a crude commercial venture. Her grandfather, the Earl of Wroxly, accepts with reluctance that the estate needs the income.

The first tour party includes members of the Historical Society, a magazine writer, and a group of schoolchildren. It is a large crowd for Phoebe, her sister Amelia, and Eva to look after, and some of the adults drift away from the group now and then. When a widow named Arvina Bell is reported missing, Eva goes looking for her and finds her in the library, killed with a silken cord from one of the draperies. The schoolchildren are sent home at once, while the Historical Society members, some of whom were out of sight at times, are detained for questioning. A framed photograph has also vanished from the library.

The police quickly fix on a suspect, but Phoebe and Eva sift through the clues on their own. Rumors of treasure hidden somewhere in Foxwood Hall may be tied to the death, and the two women must act fast to find the killer before anyone else is harmed.