In the third mystery of the series, Charlie Chan finds himself back in San Francisco. Sir Frederic Bruce, an inspector from Scotland Yard, appears on the scene to investigate a fifteen-year-old murder whose most compelling clue is a pair of Chinese slippers. Things take a nasty turn at a dinner party to which a number of important and mysterious guests are invited. Sir Frederic himself is found murdered in a twelfth-floor office; he too was last seen wearing a pair of Chinese slippers, which now have disappeared. It is up to Chan to solve this new case, and in the process, the older murder. 
