Cape Colony
Autumn 1902
Jane Dowling is hired by the matriarch of a Devon aristocratic family, Grace Smallbach, to recover the body of her husband's brother, Luke, who has been found dead in a Paris brothel. Jane travels to the family estate on the edge of Dartmoor for Luke's funeral. At a family meeting it becomes clear the financial situation is desperate, and they need to recover the investments Luke's older brother John, had supposedly been making in Cape Town. The family had thought Luke was in Cape Town with his brother John, and had no idea what he had been doing in Paris. Jane joins Grace and her daughter Ruth on a trip to the Cape Colony, a country still recovering from the Boer War, to try and find out about John who has not been heard from for four years.
They discover that John and Luke had been staying with one of the Colony's powerful diamond merchants, Dr Nieve, who now has plans to come back to England and try to recover his reputation. There are questions about his supposedly miraculous escape from the siege at Kimberly, at a time when the Smallbach brothers were working for him. Jane travels to Kimberly on her own to follow up a lead on the money, and John suddenly appears to warn her that she and the family need to return home.
On the steamer home, Jane discovers that some of Dr Nieve's men are guarding part of Dr Nieve's fortune, but professional thieves are also watching them, and there is an attempted robbery and two people die. Jane is asked by the captain to investigate, but the results are inconclusive and two of Dr Nieve's men and his fortune are never found.
Back in London, John returns to try and sell a manuscript of his side of the story, while Dr Nieve is desperate to stop him. Elements of the story leak into the public press and there is a confrontation at a special meeting of the Royal Geographic Society, as questions over Dr Nieve's conduct come to a head.
The mystery moves back to the family's castle on the edge of Dartmoor, where John Smallbach finally returns, only to expire from his wounds. In the days after John's death, Jane discovers a new suspicion about the family. Back in Devon, In the snowy grounds of the castle Jane locates the trunk of diamonds which John had been returning with, but who among his family knew about this?
