Checkmate to Murder

On a dismally foggy night in Hampstead, London, a curious party has gathered in an artists studio to weather the wartime blackout. A civil servant and a government scientist are matching wits in a game of chess, while an artist paints the portrait of his characterful sitter, bedecked in Cardinals robes at the other end of the room. In the kitchen, the artists sister is hosting the charlady of the miser next door. When the brutal murder of said miser is discovered by his Canadian infantryman nephew, its not long before Inspector Macdonald of Scotland Yard is at the scene, faced with perplexing alibis and with the fate of the young soldier in his hands.