Five Days Before Christmas - On his way to a brief holiday (he thinks) Jury meets a woman he could fall in love with. He meets her in a snow covered graveyard-not, he thinks, the best way to begin an attahcment.

Four Days Before Christmas - Jury meets Father Rourke, who draws for him the semiotic square-"a structure that might simplify thought," says the priest, but Jury's thoughts need more than symbols.

Three Days Before Christmas - Melrose Plant, Jury's aristocratic and unofficial assistant, arrives at Spinney Abbey, now home to a well-known critic. Among the assembled snowbound guests he meets: Lady Assington, Beatrice Sleight, and the painter Edward Parmenger. When they all assemble in the dining room, Lady Assington announces, "I think we should have a murder."

Two Days Before Christmas - Jury meets Plant at Jerusalem Inn. What each would like to know is the other one doing there?