Plot summary
A young man is stabbed in the back with a stiletto dagger while waiting in the queue for standing room at one of the final West End performances of a hit musical comedy starring actress and singer Ray Marcable. None of those near him in the queue noticed him until he collapsed, or appear to have any motive for killing him. The dead man carries no identification; the only item found on him is a service revolver.
Inspector Alan Grant is brought onto the case and he follows several painstaking leads, first to learn the identity of the dead man and then to track that possible killer who approached the dead man in the queue. Just one person notices the victim, and recalls another man who came to argue with the victim, and describes their appearance to Grant.
Alan Grant is independently wealthy, not dependent solely on his wage as “plainclothes policeman”. He has philanthropic uses for his money, as well as enjoying the best restaurant in town. He has Mrs Field at home to look after him, making his breakfast of bacon and eggs. He relaxes by fishing.
One lead takes Grant to Nottingham, without much result, though he learned activities that drew people there. Eventually he traces a potential suspect to the boarding house where both the dead man, Albert Sorrell a betting agent or bookmaker, and the possible killer, Gerald Lamont, lived as roommates until a day before the murder of Sorrel. Learning Sorrell’s occupation explains his trips to Nottingham, where horse races are held. Lamont’s job was as clerk to Sorrell. Grant gets photos of both men from their landlady. Learning about the family of the landlady Mrs Everett, Grant tracks the suspect to a hideaway in Carninnish on the west coast of Scotland where her clergyman brother lives. Here he meets Miss Dinmont, a London nurse by profession and niece of Mrs Everett and her uncle Logan, the clergyman. Grant catches Lamont using a motorboat to get him in a rowboat. Lamont jumps out of the rowboat, hitting his head, and is saved by Grant.
After this long trip up north tracking and arresting his man, Grant begins to have doubts as he brings him back to London on a murder charge. His story may just hold together, and be the story of his innocence not his guilt. In London, Grant seeks Sorrell’s luggage left at a train station. He finds a woman’s brooch in a case, with initials in gem stones. At the jewelers, he learns it was custom made and expensive. Mrs Everett and Gerry Lamont knew Sorrell was sailing to America the day after the musical comedy, and thus neither thought he might be the fair-haired dead man until four or five days after his murder.
Lamont is brought before magistrate’s court where his attorney protests the manner of his confession. Grant expresses his misgivings to Superintendent Barker, his superior, but his doubts are brushed aside. Grant's attempts to pursue another possible suspect lead to nothing, and he is almost forced to concede defeat.
Sitting with Barker, Grant hears the confession of the “fat woman” from the queue, Mrs Wallis, who did kill Sorrel. The boss wants to send her away, until Grant realises she is the mother of Ray Marcable, born Rose Markham, the star of the musical that people waited in line to see. Mrs Wallis had encountered Sorrell a few weeks earlier, when he said this regarding Ray going to America: “At least, it isn't certain. Either we're both going or neither of us is going.”(Chapter 18, Conclusion)
Bert Sorrel had known her daughter in childhood when she was raised by her aunt and uncle Markham, and he had been in contact with her in her current stardom. Her daughter sent back the brooch with her initials in pearls to Sorrel. Upon his rejection, he was going to make a scene at the performance, killing her and possibly killing himself. She used a knife her late first husband brought back from his sailing voyages, because she sensed Sorrel’s crazy state of mind and had to stop him. No one had taken her seriously in the early part of the investigation. Now they did. Police speculate how Mrs Wallis might be treated in court, and feel she will not be hanged.
Grant ends this case by reflecting that there was no villain in the case.
