Theater critic Artemus Bancroft isn't sure what to expect when his Auntie Halcyone Bancroft-Hyde summons him home to California with vague but urgent pleas about being unable to cope with "the situation." The situation turns out to be the apparent haunting of Green Lanterns Inn-along with alarming rumors that long-suffering Auntie Halcyone may have murdered her philandering husband, Ogden Hyde. In fact, the rumors seem to have been started by the late Mr. Hyde himself-from beyond the grave.