When the proprietor of Leighton’s Mercantile is found dead the morning his annual Christmas display is to be unveiled, it’s clear that a killer had revenge in mind. But who would want to harm the local shopkeeper? Perhaps someone who still remembers the mysterious scandal that destroyed his career as a professor and archaeologist … The killer strikes again a few days later, manipulating the figures in the holiday display to foretell the crime. Myrtle Hardcastle, twelve-year-old Young Lady of Quality and Victorian amateur detective, finds herself racing to uncover the long buried facts of a baffling cold case—and the motivations of a modern murderer.