Title: Dead for a Ducat
Description: It seems unlikely that Carolus Deene will ever be allowed by fate to complete a term of his duties as Senior History Master at Queen's School, Newminster, without having constant calls on his indubitable brilliance at criminal investigation.

The calm of this particular term is ruffled one evening when he is rung up shortly before midnight and asked by old Lady Pipford — one of the school governors, incidentally to come up to her home, Mincott House, where her son-in-law Darryl Montaccord had apparently just shot himself. The clouds begin to appear when Carolus — differing from the police — becomes convinced it's a case of murder: the storm is upon us when another dead body is found and then another.