The broad-shouldered, muscular, rude, never-sick millionaire shipowner John Millinbourne suddenly, as a result of a mysterious illness, finds himself near death. Millinbourne manages to announce his will about an inheritance of one and a half million pounds sterling to his friend and lawyer, who, a few minutes after the conversation, discovers his friend dead, with a dagger in his side. What did the rich big man actually die from? What role does “green horror” play in his death, as well as in the life of his charming heiress, slender, fair-skinned Oliva with sly lights in her beautiful eyes, a deadly powder that appears more than once on the pages of this intricate, romantic, detective novel with absolutely unexpected ending?