In the blackout conditions of a wintry London night, amateur sleuth Agnes Kinghof and a young air-raid warden have stumbled upon a corpse stowed in the walls of their street's bomb shelter. As the police begin their investigation, the night is interrupted once again when Agnes's upstairs neighbour Mrs Sibley is terrorised by the sight of a grisly pig's head at her fourth-floor window. With the discovery of more sinister threats mysteriously signed 'Pig-sticker', Agnes and her husband Andrew – unable to resist a good mystery – begin their investigation to deduce the identity of a villain living amongst the tenants of their block of flats.