AustLit

Proud Maria Stanley determines to murder her friend Sophie Carnegie when she learns Sophie is to marry her uncle and thus inherit the station and income she has counted as her own. Detective Sinclair and another detective solve the disappearance of Sophie in the lagoon - not married and gone to Tasmania as a letter suggested but left to drown by Maria who had been secretly meeting the old groom's son - the old man tried to protect her with the false letter. An old mad woman Madge rescued Sophie from death and cared for her in an old hut until Sinclair discovers her. Maria never recovers consciousness after her own accident on the lagoon - she is better off dead is the general consensus. Sophie marries happily her elderly army officer. (PB)