Mrs. Bell, housekeeper at Mount Eden, is found murdered and little Linda Bell, seven years old, is missing. Ole Fren Yorky is suspected of the killing and the kidnapping. Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is seconded to investigate the crime on behalf of the South Australian Police. He spends much time talking with the local aborigines because he is convinced that they know more about the case than they are saying. When he discovers that old Chief Canute has been promised Meena and that Charlie is in love with her, he buys Meena for forty plugs of tobacco and tells Charlie that he will give him Meena if he will help him.
How did the stranger travel to Lucifer's Couch without apparently being seen by either whites, station aborigines or desert aborigines? Why was he killed and carried into the middle of the Crator and dumped–why was he not buried, or at least concealed? Kurt and Rose Brentner and their two adorable little daughters are Bony's hosts while he ponders on this fourteen-week-old puzzle and tries to find the murderer. Bony is a little older in this story, with a little gray in his well-kept black hair, but he has lost none of his abilities.
Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte of the Queensland Police arrives at Opal Town on a fine warm September 23rd to enquire into the possible murder of Jeffery Anderson, who disappeared on the 18th of April. His efforts to solve the problem are hampered by many factors. The case is many months old, there is evidence that Bony is being constantly shadowed and that aborigines with blood-and-feather encased feet have him under constant surveillance to make sure he finds out as little as possible.
