On his first visit to his home town in over twenty years, the famous actor-manager, Sir John Riversley, had been about to open in Hamlet at Hatherford's Theatre Royal but now lay dead - stabbed in the back with a rapier. In their pursuit of the murderer, Marston, the Chief Constable, and Detective Sergeant Stell uncover long-held grudges against the dead man from townsfolk, a fellow actor, his questionable business manager and an infatuated fan here from Australia. As suspects accumulate and fall under police scrutiny, the question remains - who'd had the audacity to commit this wicked act? And in such a limited time-frame?