With a general election fast approaching, a deep rift,separates the aristocratic Tories from the Liberal opposition. Passions are so inflamed that Thomas Pitt,shrewd mainstay of the London police, has been ordered to forego his long-awaited vacation, not to solve a crime,but to prevent a national disaster.

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With a general election fast approaching, a deep rift,separates the aristocratic Tories from the Liberal opposition. Passions are so inflamed that Thomas Pitt,shrewd mainstay of the London police, has been ordered to forego his long-awaited vacation, not to solve a crime,but to prevent a national disaster.

The Tory candidate is Pitt's archenemy, Charles Voisey. The Liberal candidate is Aubrey Serracold, whose wife's dalliance with spiritualism threatens his chances. Indeed, she is one of the participants in a late-night seance that becomes the swan song of fashionable clairvoyant Maude Lamont, who is found brutally murdered the next morning in her house on Southampton Row. Meanwhile, Pitt's wife,Charlotte, and their children are enjoying the countryvacation that Pitt has been denied--unaware that they, too,are deeply endangered by the same fanatical forces hovering over the steadfast Pitt.