Leander Hill: He received a dead dog in the mails and the shock killed him...
Laurel Hill: She swore her father had been murdered and she was ready to prove it with a gun...
Roger Priam: Leander Hill's partner. Paralyzed from the waist down, he snarled at the world with rage and hurt vanity...
Alfred Wallace: Priam's silver-haired, suave secretary, he served his master in strange ways...
Mrs. Roger Priam: In Ellery's words: "She was big game....She seized and held the senses; everything was leashed and lovely and dangerous." As soon as he met these people, Ellery Queen could smell the odor of MURDER...nasty, foul, ridden with hate.