George Baker, head of the Secret Service's Far East Division, Colonel Green, his closest aide, and Jim Ellis, special agent, are on the trail of a crime for which there appears to be neither a motive nor a perpetrator. Mildred Beaty, a Secret Service employee in Hong Kong, was the victim of a mysterious murder. Who was she on the trail of? Ellis begins to investigate at the Ivanhoe Hotel, owned by a certain Mrs. Corby, because that is where the murdered woman last stayed. The people who come and go at the Ivanhoe are extremely suspicious: first, there is a pensioner and long-time guest named Philipp Cooper, a lover of Far Eastern music and owner of a beautiful oriental knife; Dr. Hall, a physician and Mrs. Corby's secret lover; and finally, the mysterious butler, John Miller. Another lead leads to the office of real estate agent Tom Clifford...
