Who killed Gregor Wilchenski, internationally famous pianist, in the New York home of his wife from whom he had been separated for years? Not that anybody cares much, aside from the police and a few devoted music lovers, for Gregor was not a nice person.

Gregor, who is making his first visit to New York in twenty-five years, is found dead at the piano in the room he has appropriated to his own in the home of his estranged wife. Beside him, on the floor, is another corpse. That of a man well known to the police as having some connection with the traffic in narcotics.

Inspector Schmidt, who knows nothing at all about music, but a great deal about crime, arrives on the scene accompanied by a young man who is doing some ghost writing for him. It is this man, by the way, who tells the story. At first, he is inclined to belittle the inspector because of the latter's obvious lack of refinement and his frankly expressed ignorance.

Originally published in 1935 this was George Bagby's first mystery novel.