The Sting - William Le Queux

A baronet with a deadly heart condition and a terrible secret is being bled dry by a cunning blackmailer. When he dies suddenly at his ancestral priory, his eldest son inherits-only to be found murdered in a haunted tower room the very next night.

Suspicion falls on the victim's stepbrother, arrested and charged with the killing. But a formidable elderly solicitor refuses to accept the obvious answer. As he delves into hidden passages beneath the ancient priory, he uncovers layers of deception: a scheming doctor with a sinister hold over the grieving widow, a secret marriage, and a web of manipulation stretching from the shores of Lake Geneva to the windswept marshes of Norfolk.

With the trial looming and the real killer still at large, the old lawyer must outwit a dangerous adversary-even if it means resorting to kidnapping, disguise, and a midnight chase across treacherous fenland-to bring the truth to light before an innocent man hangs.