The restoration of a bombed-out London theatre ends in violent death – and one of Marsh’s most vivid and dramatic novels.

When the bombed-out Dolphin Theatre is given to Peregrine Jay by a mysterious wealthy patron, he is overjoyed. And when the mysterious oil millionaire also gives him a glove that belonged to Shakespeare, Peregrine displays it in the dockside theatre and writes a successful play about it.

But then a murder takes place, a boy is attacked, the glove is stolen. Could it be that oil and water don’t mix? Inspector Roderick Alleyn is determined to find out…