Ellery Queen meets Harry Burke, a British private investigator, who is returning to New York at the request of Inspector Queen, Ellery's father. The two weary travelers are quickly caught up in a murder investigation.
Burke's client, Flory Guild, is found slumped over her desk having scrawled the word "f a c e" onto her blotter. The victim was a retired singer who had a taste for puzzles and bad taste in men. Her husband was a philanderer who had married her for her money, a plan that had been threatened when Burke had found the victim's long lost niece. It would have been so very simple if the husband hadn't had an alibi. Inspector Queen and New York's finest were hard at work on the case but even with Burke's and Ellery's help the progress is slow.