Harry Marsland is caught in a sudden storm and he is forced to seek shelter in a nearest house that happens to be at a Cliff Farm. He is welcomed in by a woman who was expecting someone else. Before the storm is over, they are alarmed by a noise from the upstairs, especially because there was supposed to be nobody else in the house. They get upstairs and find a farm's owner dead of a gunshot wound. When the storm is over the police inspectors arrive, and soon after them the famous private detective Crew is on the scene too.

Arthur John Rees (1872-1942) was an Australian mystery writer and journalist. Born in Melbourne, he was for a short time on the staff of the Melbourne Age and later joined the staff of the New Zealand Herald. He was very proficient as a writer of crime-mystery fiction and a couple of his stories were included in an American world-anthology of detective stories. Some of his works were translated into French and German.