In 1920s Manhattan, lawyer Tom Brice witnesses an impossible crime: an argument, a gunshot, and a woman's scream from the office across the hall, yet when he rushes to investigate, the room stands empty. No one could have passed him in the hallway. The victim is Amos Gately, president of the Puritan Trust Company and owner of the building itself, his body vanishing along with his killer. As Brice and his sharp-witted assistant Norah MacCormack dig deeper, they encounter a tangle of suspects: Gately's business partner, his beautiful ward, and a mysterious woman seen leaving his office that day. But the most intriguing figure surfaces from the East River itself: an amnesia victim pulled from the water who insists his earliest memory is of falling through a hole in the earth. Detective Pennington Wise must untangle this web of secrets, forgotten identities, and one man's strange claim that may be the key to everything. Carolyn Wells, a master of golden age detection, weaves a puzzle that rewards careful attention and refuses easy answers.
