Sergeant John Meadows, a U. S. Marine paratrooper, returns to the U. S. to meet Rosemary Blake, a girl he fell in love with only through correspondence. On the train, he meets Dr. Leslie Ross, also a talented musician, and tells her about Rosemary. Rosemary's mother, a crippled, mysterious old lady, meets John and tells him her daughter has gone away for a brief time but will be returning soon. She shows him a portrait of her daughter. Mrs. Blake seems to have a strange power over her companion, Ivy Miller, and John cannot account for how uneasy he feels in Mrs. Blake's home. Mrs. Blake is very displeased when she learns that John and Leslie are acquainted, and goes into a rage when John tells her he has fallen in love with Leslie. John learns that the portrait of Rosemary was painted by his friend, Paul Arnheim of San Francisco; he leaves to talk to Arnheim and in his absence Mrs. Blake poisons HER companion, Miss Ivy, asserting that she died from a sleeping potion administered by Leslie. What John learns in San Francisco, from HIS acquaintance, is startling, and Mrs. Blake realizes that he too must be murdered.—Les Adams