Millionaire Otis Jarrell can't even trust his family, it seems. He hires a reluctant Nero Wolfe to find out if his daughter-in-law is double-crossing him. Wolfe and Archie encounter a rogue's gallery of Jarrells and associates and discover one, then two, men killed by the old man's gun.

But even Wolfe's distaste for everyone involved doesn't prevent him from assembling the guests and masterfully declaring — to everyone's surprise — "whodunit."