For the mere sake of adventure, danger, and the “fun of the thing,”  Wyndham Brandon persuades his weak-minded friend, Charles Granillo, to  assist him in the murder of a fellow undergraduate, a perfectly harmless  man named Ronald Raglan. They place the body in a wooden chest, and to  add spice to their handiwork, invite a few acquaintances, including the  dead youth’s father, to a party, the chest with its gruesome contents  serving as a supper table. The horror and tension are worked up  gradually; thunder grows outside, the guests leave, and we see the  reactions of the two murderers, watched closely by the suspecting lame  poet Rupert Cadell. Finally, they break down under the strain and  confess their guilt.