A young couple get involved with a smuggler

Nutbourne College, an old established, all-boys, boarding school is told that another school is to be billeted with due to wartime restrictions. The shock is that it's an all-girls school that has been sent. The two head teachers are soon battling for the upper hand with each other and the Ministry. But a crisis (or two) forces them to work together.

Ten people are invited to a summer party on an island oft the Devon coast. They are an extremely varied group from a blustering major to a frigid spinster. The only thing they have in common is that they were each involved in a case of unexpected death. They soon find something very odd about their invitations, and then they start to die, one by one. But who is the murderer and where is he hiding.