"The vehicle which he had heard in the distance was now close by, he turned idly to watch it pass. He did not know then that this slight action, performed almost involuntarily, was to change his whole life, and not only his, but the lives of a number of other people of whose existence he was not then aware, was to lead to sorrow as well as happiness, to crime as well as the vindication of the law..." When Seymour Merriman stopped for a rest he noticed that his motorcycle was leaking petrol. He decided to follow the large lorry, with "The Landes Pit-Prop Syndicate, No. 4" marked on its side, which had just lumbered by, and ask the driver to let him have enough fuel to cover the remaining 26 miles to Bordeaux. It wasn't clear what this English Company was doing in France, but murder soon made it the business of Inspector Willis to find out. The Inspector needed all the patience, tenacity, and guile he could muster to untangle this brilliantly complicated and baffling plot. Another brilliant ingenious detective story by the author of The Ponson Case. The mystery of the real business of the syndicate utterly baffled the clever young "amateurs" who tried to solve it, and it took all the experience and perseverance of the "professionals" to break up the dangerous and murderous gang.