The great and the good of the country are out in force for the annual tennis party at the Bickleighs', though few if any have talent or enthusiasm for the game. Like many an English custom, the party exisits for other reasons. Charmingly mannered infidelity is now the most popular mode of entertainment in the small but exclusive Devonshire hamlet of Wyvern's Cross.
Which is why, in his own garden, diminutive host Dr Edmund Bickleigh is fighting desperately to conceal the two things on his mind.
A mounting passion for Gwynfryd Rattery. And the certin conviction that he is going to kill his wife . . .
