Penguins ISBN 0 14 00.3881 7 - A Fine and Private Place

Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

First published by Victor Gollancz, 1971 Published in Penguin Books 1974 Copyright © Ellery Queen, 1971

Made and printed in Great Britain by Hunt Barnard Printing Ltd, Aylesbury, Bucks Set in Intertype 9/11 Plantin

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser