Commander Joe Sandilands, a Scotland Yarder completing a stint with the Bengal Police, is on his way back home when the provincial governor asks him to look into the recent death-by-suicide of an army officers young wife. Nancy Drummond, a close friend of the dead woman, reveals that four other officers wives have also died apparently by accident or misadventure over a period of 12 years, all in the month of March.

Presents the letters of Fanny Austen, who married Jane Austen's youngest brother, Captain Charles Austen.