Publisher's Synopsis
Primrosa, a collector "possessed by an insatiable acquisitiveness" and a singular ignorance of his possessions, and whose exasperating facetious "conversation is a sort of everlasting crossword puzzle," disappears after a hit and run accident, while his house is burgled and a cryptic note left. His cousin and executor, anxious to establish survivorship, calls in Dr. Waterberry, whose understanding of the significance of a fragment of pottery leads to the excavation of a Kentish barrow and the discovery of Primrosa therein, and whose discovery of a connection between the Billington Jewel Robbery and Primrosa leads to the discovery of his murderer. The reader hesitates between two suspects before Dr. Waterberry solves the conundrum in a most satisfying manner.