At an amusingly described Women's Institute meeting in Quintern Place, the beautiful home of The Hon. Sybil Foster, a wealthy widow, we meet or hear of the characters who populate the idyllic Kentish village of Upper Quintern: Sybil's childhood friend, Verity Preston (a West End playwright), their daily 'help' Mrs Jim Jobbin and gardener Angus McBride, the vicar, the local GP and so on. Sybil and Verity both live in houses inherited from their fathers. The "rhythms of life" of this highly traditional, class-structured community are described as having changed little "in spite of war, bombs, crises and inflation" Grave Mistake, Ngaio Marsh, page 8 except for the arrival of Nikolas Markos, a suave, exotic multi-millionaire, who has bought and extravagantly refurbished the nearby Mardling Manor. At a dinner party, Markos introduces another outsider, Dr Basil Schramm, newly arrived medical incumbent at Greengages Hotel, a classy, expensive health retreat, where Sybil Foster is a frequent guest. Verity is disconcerted to recognise Schramm as Basil Smythe, a former medical student of her father's, who had seduced and then dropped her 25 years previously.
