The flamboyant detective and gourmet Nero Wolfe, who has truly earned his fame as New York’s best detective, and his brave assistant Archie Goodwin are once again at the center of events.
Herman Luennt makes Wolf a very strange request. He wants to determine which of three beauties living in the house of his brother-in-law, Theodore Hack, has so enchanted Hack that he is ready to marry her. Adding spice to the situation is the fact that Hack is a widower: he was married to Luennt’s sister and inherited a huge fortune from her. In turn, the late sister inherited her fortune from her father, who in his will instructed his sister to care for her brother—but didn’t allocate a single cent to Luennt.
Wolf’s client hopes that if he can befriend Hack’s future wife, it will secure him a comfortable existence from now on. The trouble is that he can’t pursue all three at once, so that’s why he turned to Wolfe.