Publisher's Synopsis
The luncheon party, in honor of Henrietta Cosgrove's 80th birthday has gone well. Her five stepchildren had gathered in her lovely old thatched house to enjoy the food prepared by Freda. Henrietta then drops a bombshell -- to shore up her dwindling income, she proposes to sell two landscape paintings, by a hitherto unknown artist whose work has been discovered. The alterntive is to sell the house, something that no-one supports.That night the house burns down, Henrietta is safe, though most of her possessions have gone, Then the paintings are found to be missing; it looks as though the fire was intentional and meant to cover up the theft. But the fire reveals more than it hides, and the Cosgroves find themselves in the center of a murder hunt. Some of them at least knew what the old walls of the house had contained.
