This novel is told from different perspectives.
It starts with Iris Marle, a young woman. Iris tells us that her sister, Rosemary Barton, died a year ago. After having the flu, she suffered from depression, and then she killed herself. Iris tells us that her sister, who was six years older than her, was a woman of many qualiies, beautiful, attractive, and even rich. Rosemary had inherited some money from Paul Bennett, a man who had been in love with her mother with no success, so he became a friend of the family and became Rosemary's godfather. When he died, he left his fortune to Rosemary.
Rosemary married George, a man who Iris thinks is unexciting and boring, so she doesn't understand how a woman as gregarious and sociable as Rosemary married him when there were many to choose from. Iris moved to live with her sister when her mother died, but her relationship was not close as Rosemary used to spend a great deal of time outside at parties and social gatherings.
Iris tells us that there are two events that happened that changed things for her. When she was trying to find a pullover at the attic, she came across Rosemary's dressing gown, and in the pocket she found a note. In the note Rosemary wrote to a lover, calling him Leopard, and Rosemary begged him not to leave her because she couldn't live without him. Iris was shocked and wonders who the lover is. There are two men who Rosemary was close to. One is Stephen Farraday, a rising politician who did not have much money and was married. The other one was Tony Browne, a businessman, who went away just after Rosemary's death. Iris hoped that the lover was not Tony. Anthony Browne returns and Iris runs into him, and after that they start seeing each other, and when she tells George, he is not pleased and tells her to be careful.
The other event that happens is that George's attitude changed. Iris finds him staring into the space, and he keeps asking her questions about Rosemary and whether she had enemies. Then George tells her that he got an anonymous note, telling him that Rosemary didn't kill herself but she was murdered.
We know that Rosemary died during the celebration of her birthday. There were seven guests: Rosemary, George, Iris, Stephan Farraday, his wife, Sandra Farraday, Tony Browne, and Ruth Lessing, George's secretary. There should have been an eighth guest, Colonel Race, but he couldn't go.
The next chapter is told from the perspective of Ruth Lessing, the secretary. She tells us that George asked her to go and see one of Rosemary's relatives, Simon Drake. Simon was Rosemary's cousin and he was a miscreant and had demanded money from Rosemary. Simon's mum, Aunt Lucilla, is the woman who came to live with George and Iris to act as a maternal figure for Iris. George didn't like Simon and didn't want either Rosemary or himself to meet him. So he asked Ruth to go and see him, and what she should offer was one hundred pounds and a passage to Argentine, and the money should be handed on the ship. When Ruth met him, she had to admit that the man had charm, and then as they talked, he made her admit that George should have married her. When that meeting finished, Ruth realised that she was not the same person as she realised she hated Rosemary and she was ready to hurt Rosemary if she had the chance.
The next part is told from Anthony Browne's perspective. And we discover that Rosemary discovered his real identity because her cousin Simon had been in prison at the same time as Anthony, whose real name is Tony Morelli.
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