By a riverside somewhere in Malaysia, a white man is found dead in a Chinese house. According to the forensic doctor, death has been caused both by opium and starvation. The district police superintendent, Arthur Low, investigates. The Chinese woman owning the house hands him over a bundle of love letters as well as a cigarette case reading the initials "A. J.". Before dying, the white man had given instructions for these objects to be delivered in London, to Lady Kastellan in person...
—Guy Bellinger