The Hunt Ball Mystery

At a country-house ball a guest is discovered dead in a locked upstairs room, and what first appears as suicide soon produces baffling clues—stained flowers, a streak on a cuff, a missing attendee and a lost brooch. Two acquaintances and the household pursue inquiries, piecing together witness statements, a maid's discovery and furtive movements while a police inspector becomes involved. Gradually, testimony from a young woman and other finds untangle secret relationships and motives, resolve the locked-room puzzle, and produce an explanation that settles competing suspicions and determines the fate of those implicated.