The Folly

A country house unveils its new folly. The hermit paid to sit in it is shot dead.

August 1926. Wexcombe Park throws the party of the season to show off its restored hermitage, complete with a live-in hermit hired to sit in the doorway and be admired.

A cannon opens the fete, and half an hour later the hermit is dead at his table, a service revolver by his hand.

Roderick Fane has a personal tie to the man, and Nell Blackwood is beside him to find answers.

When the dead man is revealed to be Rupert Vereker, the family's disgraced brother, paid to stay abroad for the sake of the family's reputation, the number of people who could have wanted him dead grows.