On a foggy night a doctor accidentally visits the wrong house and finds a man dying of a gunshot wound. He quickly calls Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield for help, and further murders are discovered as the case unfolds. The mystery deepens when advertisements in a secret code appear in the local paper, a witness is blackmailed, and possibly fabricated evidence comes in from an anonymous source. Then, a woman central to the case is drugged—and three of the main characters are chemists. The number of possible solutions to the case soon spirals into an ever-increasing number.

The Case with Nine Solutions was first published in Britain in 1928. The technical science in this case, clearly explained, has its foundation in J. J. Connington’s background as a research chemist.