Two decades after High Court judge Sir Walter Springfellow disappeared, hikers uncover a skeleton wearing his signet ring. When Scobie reopens the inquiry, he finds that Venetia Springfellow has parlayed the fortune her husband left her into an empire her venomous sister-in-law Emma wants to control. Then Emma is killed and Scobie is saddled with two highly sensitive cases that his jumpy superior prefers to leave unsolved.