When Lydia Langstone flees her abusive husband,a member of the British Union of Fascits,she seeks refuge in the gloomy loding house of her elderly father.But No.7 Bleeding Heart Square is home to a dark mystery.Where is Miss Penhow,the middle-aged spinster who owns the house,but hasn't been seen for four years?Why does a seedy plain-clothes policeman wach the square so obsessively?And who is sending parcels of rotting hearts to the house?

Legend has it that the devil once danced in Bleeding Heart Square,and as Lydia probes further into Miss Penhow's disappearance,she begins to suspect that a sinister presence might still lurk in the shadows…