An unknown woman asks Nero Wolfe to hide her in his home for a week. Nero finds the request “completely unacceptable” and sends the tenant out the door. The girl leaves—and dies. She is the heir to a huge corporation. Too many people need her death.
The same hour, a man rushes to Wolfe with an offer of a large sum of money for Wolfe to find the heir. Archie Goodwin, seeing that his boss doesn’t care about the tragedy, begins a personal investigation. At the same time, he manages to give Lieutenant Roukcliff a reason to put him behind bars. The charge reads: “impersonating a police officer and interfering with the investigation.” Wolfe is forced to call Archie his client in order to get him out of prison and continue the investigation!