In as sinister an old library as one is likely to come across, presided over by the portrait of a grim-faced, mad-eyed old man, a dusty lawyer reads a will (involving some millions of pounds) to an equally sinister family - one member of which has werewolf tendencies, another wanders around in a toga of Julius Caesar, a third is a gentle lady who plants more than seeds in her flower-beds.

By the third act there are more corpses than live members left in the cast: and what about the sympathetic nurse and the author of romantic novels - are they all, or more than, they seem to be? All is revealed as the plot twists and turns to its surprising conclusion.