When rising young artist Clive Hexley, R.A., vanishes, his friends suspect foul play. Chief-Inspector Calthorp of Scotland Yard is called upon to look into the disappearance, and his investigations lead him to question Hexley's ex-fiancee, Elsa Farraday. Farraday writes horror-tinged mysteries under a pseudonym, and lives by herself in an old house in the English countryside. She eventually confesses that she murdered the artist and threw his body into a swamp. But the girl's odd, even peculiar mannerisms puzzle Calthorp, and he hesitates to make an arrest when no trace of Hexley's body can be found--or even any proof of his death. Ultimately, he calls in Dr. Adam Castle, the redoubtable psychiatrist and investigator, to help solve the case. Is Elsa a cold-blooded murderer mining her own crimes for her lurid novels? Or is she just an unfortunate "lost soul" who was in the wrong place at the wrong time? An absolutely first-rate psychological thriller "