Flowers for the Judge

The Barnabas family is no stranger to mystery, one of the founder's nephews, Tom Barnabas, having disappeared from the street in broad daylight never to be seen again. When it is remarked, at a Sunday evening gathering held by Gina Brande in her flat next door to the offices, that Paul Brande, her husband, has not been home for three days, no-one finds it too remarkable. Shortly after the arrival of his old friend Albert Campion to look into the vanishing, Mike, Paul's younger cousin and clearly in love with Gina, goes to the vault to fetch some papers for the eldest cousin, the Barnabas MD, John Widdowson, and returns looking shaken, but says nothing.