In 1940 Leland Langtry ran off with his redheaded secretary and $10,000 in company funds...

Or so everyone believed�

Forty years later, Langtry�s remains are found in a boarded-up silver mine tunnel. And as the knife still jammed between his ribs had belonged to his partner in Lang-Star Mining, Tom Starbuck�also long since dead�a jury decided that Tom had killed Langtry.

But Tom�s widow, Delia, resists that verdict and persuades that very private investigator Conan Flagg to find the real murderer�an impossible job made tougher by the curious reticence of nearly everyone in town whenever Leland Langtry is mentioned�.