Anna Katharine Green — called the mother of the detective novel, whose Leavenworth Case appeared nine years before Sherlock Holmes — sets her puzzle amid the glitter of a New York ball. A man is stabbed in an alcove, and the woman found beside him is engaged to the very man everyone suspects, who maddeningly refuses to defend himself. So his fiancée takes up the detecting herself, because no one else will. This edition presents the complete and unabridged novel, newly typeset and illustrated with 36 full-page color plates.