Vicky Van Allen is a social butterfly who lives in a small but perfectly stylish house just off Fifth Avenue. She has a great many friends, but nobody seems to know much of anything about her, and she seems to have simply sprung into existence two years ago. At a dinner party, a mutual friend introduces her to Mr. Somers. Later that night, Somers is found stabbed to death with Vicky Van standing over him, trying to pull out the knife.
Vicky Van vanishes completely. It turns out that Mr. Somers was actually Mr. Schuyler, a wealthy roué who lived in the house literally adjoining the back of Vicky Van’s. The elderly Schuyler sisters are out for blood, but Ruth — the dead man’s wife — would rather let it go. Schuyler was a domineering man who made his much younger wife’s life misery.
Celebrated detective Fleming Stone is called in to find Vicky Van and he doesn’t have to look far.
This is the earliest Fleming Stone novel I’ve read and it was pretty straight-forward. Wells would reuse this plot later for The Vanity Case in 1926. That one was pretty straight-forward, too. Misdirection wasn’t really her thing.
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