Stephen Lansbury is an orphan. He thinks he has no relatives at all -- until the day a letter arrives telling him that a distant uncle is dead. Suddenly Stephen finds himself the only heir to a great estate in the countryside. So Stephen sets off to claim his inheritance . . . but when he arrives, there is nothing to greet him at Lansbury Hall but a mystery.

The puzzle is as tangled as the vines on the hall's front gate, but two things are clear: Stephen's uncle kept to himself, and none of the townspeople knows he's dead. But why does Stephen feel that something or someone is in the...