A dash from an empty house at the sight of a murdered man with a dragon-topped hatpin protruding from one eye! An escape from the police on the back of a speeding roadster. The discovery that its driver, a curly-haired, beautiful girl, clutches in one hand the headless body of that same fatal dragon-topped hatpin! This is the first climax of breathless action that winds about the figure of Ford Harling, penniless derelict in Chicago, and plunges him into the heart of another famous web-work plot of Harry Stephen Keeler. He is caught in a maelstrom of circumstances that whirl about a stolen ruby, counterfeit bills, a nocturnal visit to a cemetery, and a peculiarly baffling murder involving a lovely heiress.

It is the fastest-moving mystery ever written by Harry Stephen Keeler, expert in bafflement and tantalizing clues.