'Mr Gabb, your son did not commit suicide. He was murdered.' Simon Gabb had everything - or so it seems: a beautiful house, a big estate, a flourishing business and two sons, both endowed with evident capacity for carrying on the family firm. One is brilliant, inventive, the other dependable and efficient. And yet something was manifestly wrong. A secret invention, on which his business was engaged for the government, becomes known to those who had no right to know it. But how and where did the leak occur? It was a conundrum which creates suspicion and dissension within the family and engulfs everyone who dined with them one Saturday night. The next morning, Gabb's elder son, Giles, who, despite his oddities of behaviour, has shown such promise, was found murdered by the lake. Smouldering emotions within the family at once flare up, further deepening the mystery that Superintendent Mallett must unravel.