A man picks up a woman hitch-hiker and takes her to a little place he keeps for the occasional sex attack - but he gets a surprise of his own when his heart is cut out with a sharp hook. The murder looks very like another recent killing. Police Inspector Clifford hears on the radio about a book by local writer Natalie, which is about a seventeenth-century countess with many lovers who all ended up dead. The countess kept an eagle which tore out her husband's heart, after he locked her up. Clifford contacts Natalie and his suspicion soon falls on Mrs Henska, an elderly european who is descended from the count. The police start watching Mrs Henska's nephew, Tadek Kuchinsky, a female impersonator. Then another man dies. Clifford is falling for Natalie, but he is also beginning to suspect her...