In the last остросюжетном novel John Вердон (1942), confessed master of detective genre, offers to the reader an on rareness intricate puzzle, charging to decide her to Dave Гурни - policeman in retirement, that already had time to glorify Вердона brilliant solutions of the most difficult murders. For this time Гурни, operating as an inquiry agent, not simply untangles the filaments of paradoxical crime, but also disrobes policemen, that conducted false, unconscientious investigation, by mistake calculated a killer and closed the case, as a result Кэй Спалтер, accused of murder of own husband, got in prison. Imperiling the life, Гурни attacks track of veritable criminal and, finding solution of "matter of Спалтеров" finally, grows torpid from that, as far as a true appeared absurd and terrible.