Description: It is 1949. Sir Francis Sherwood - WW1 hero, landowner, magistrate - is shot dead while standing at an open bedroom window in his country house. A rifle is found in the grounds.
The county police seek help from Scotland Yard. Detective Chief Inspector Bryce and Detective Sergeant Haig are assigned to the case. The first difficulty for the Yard men is that nobody with even a mild dislike of Sherwood can be found. But before that problem can be resolved, others arise...... Philip Bryce is an unusual policeman. A Cambridge-educated barrister, and something of a polymath, he joined the Metropolitan Police in 1937 under Lord Trenchard's accelerated promotion scheme. After distinguished army service in WW2, by 1949 he has become Scotland Yard's youngest DCI. A very private individual, he remains a bachelor, his fiancee having been killed during the war. Bryce is something of a polymath, and has a number of outside interests - railways and cricket near the top of the list.