Very much a family affair of blackmailing involves Val Bryant, divorced three years for, in protecting his daughter, he is also protecting his ex-wife, her mother, her new husband, her brother and his ex-wife. The murder of the man with a cane, the bits and pieces of the poison pen letters, the antagonism they breed, another attempt at murder and Val learns a bitter truth as a solution. New York City, uptown and downtown, is the setting for the fourth in this author's commendable stories.