Deborah, under suspicion, returns alone to the scene where a gaudy diva was murdered-to the house on the rooftop of a Chicago apartment building. 'She reached the roof and emerged at the opening of the parapet wall. Flat, black, and dirty. Chimneys, incinerators, ventilators. The house itself, dark and dingy and passive. Nothing moved...No sound except, away below, the murmur of a passing automobile...Quite suddenly she realized that if she had removed the threat of the police she had also removed their protection.'

Mignon G. Eberhart had a long career that brought her the Grand Masters Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. She died at the age of ninety-seven in 1996. Introducing this Golden Age mystery classic is Carl D. Brandt, whose literary agency represented Eberhart.