Charlie Howard, a professional thief and detective writer, familiar to us from his “nightly adventures in Amsterdam,” is now in Paris. Of course, as a writer. But also as a thief: he demonstrates to a certain amateur how to break into an apartment. And then Charlie is hired to steal one rather unremarkable painting... - all from the same apartment. And then in Charlie's own apartment... a corpse is discovered. And Howard again has to play two opposing roles at once: a criminal hiding from the law and a detective desperately trying to help the law - if only to save his own life.