On November 11, ninety-year-old General Fentiman is found dead in an armchair at the Bellona Club. No one knows exactly when his death occurred--information essential in determining the recipient of a substantial inheritance. But that is only one of the mysteries vexing Lord Peter Wimsey. The aristocratic sleuth needs every bit of his amazing skills to discover why the proud officers lapel was missing the requisite red poppy on Armistice Day, how the Bellona Clubs telephone was fixed without a repairman, and, most puzzling of all, why the great mans knee swung freely when the rest of him was stiff with rigor mortis.