In 1815, an inquiry agent, Mr. Knighton Gaunt, is asked by Lord Crowley to attend a seance with the express purpose of revealing the spiritualist as a fraud. When the seance ends abruptly, Lord Crowley is poisoned during the turmoil by an unseen killer. Gaunt is now left to investigate not only fraud, but murder. Suspicion turns first to the spiritualist, Miss Prudence Barnard, but as Gaunt digs deeper into the twisted history of the guests at Rosecrest, he discovers more deadly secrets. Inevitably, long-time friends turn against one another as the tension mounts, and Gaunt is challenged time...