As Anne, Emily, and Charlotte Brontë query publishers for their poetry, they're also hoping for a new case for their fledgling detecting enterprise, Bell Brothers and Company solicitors. When their housekeeper Tabby tells them that a skeleton has been found bricked up in a chimney at Scar Top House, their second case (after The Vanished Bride) has fallen into their hands. The villagers believe that the house's owner, Clifton Bradshaw, sold his soul to the devil in return for great riches. An interesting legend, but does this have anything to do with the bones? The sisters feel compelled to investigate, but they soon learn that true evil has set a murderous trap and they've been lured right into it.