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Inspector Mallett, CID is vacationing at the sub-par country hotel. On the last evening of his holiday, a fellow lodger, the elderly, garrulous Mr. Leonard Dickinson strikes up a conversation and invites Mallett for a drink. Mallett finds the man's ramblings about his history, his family, his vague allusions to his own death both intriguing and depressing. When he asks the old man, "I shall see you at breakfast?" the old man replies, "Perhaps!"
On the following day, as Mallett is preparing to pay his bill, he learns that Dickinson is dead, an apparent suicide, which is the ruling of the coroner's inquest.
The verdict of suicide is a blow to Dickinson's wife and two his two adult children, who are beneficiaries of a life insurance policy that will not be paid in the event of suicide. So Steven and Annie Dickinson, and Annie's fiance, Martin set out to investigate the man's final days in order to prove that his death was not a suicide, but murder.
I am a fan of Hare's short stories, which are cleverly written and pull off some neat plot twists, and the Hitchcockian irony at the conclusion of this tale does not disappoint. The problem is that it is too rambling, and not with any sense that the reader is being purposely misdirected - yes, a few of the red herrings do play into the finale, but much of it is just over-writing, and it would have benefited by some objective editing.
Still - a real surprise at the end of the tale, and Hare is well worth checking out for lovers of a good plot twist.