Jane Harris, Amelita Ward, a student at the Bluecliff Seminary for Girls, asks Tom Lawrence, the Falcon, for help to investigate a death her unstable roommate, Marguerita Serena, [Rita Corday], a clairvoyant, predicted. The recently deceased Professor Jamison leaves everyone uncertain whether his end was suicide or homicide, setting the stage for a slow-burn mystery that blends eerie omens with cold hard clues.
Posing as an insurance investigator, the Falcon steps into a world of quiet corridors and hidden motives. He is greeted by the school’s tall order of authority and expertise: the Dean, Barbara Brown; Psychology teacher Dr Anatole Graelich, George Givot; Drama teacher Vicky Gaines, Jean Brooks; and Music teacher Mary Phoebus, Isabel Jewell. Local law enforcement is present too, with Inspector Donovan, Cliff Clark, and Detective Bates, Edward Gargan, who are weighing the coroner’s verdict of suicide while keeping a close eye on every suspicious rumor that swirls around the school. The undertaker, Ian Wolfe, provides a grounded counterpoint as the Falcon digs into deceptions that the surface world would rather ignore.
The investigation leads Tom from the dead professor’s room to the undertaker’s chamber, where the prevailing theory is that Jamison took an overdose of sleeping pills. Yet Tom believes murder is at play and tracks a circle of suspects who might profit from the professor’s death. Marguerita Serena remains a focal point, haunted by the fear that she has inherited her father’s supposed insanity, while a tangled love triangle begins to expand its web around Graelich, Mary, and Vicky—each with possible motives that could tip the scales toward murder.
Before Tom can confront the killer, Dean Keyes is struck down, and the fragile calm of the campus is shattered. Marguerita’s testimony—that she saw Mary hovering near the body of Miss Keyes—sparks a desperate scheme: Mary tries to drive Marguerita to jump from the cliffs and vanish the threat. Tom races to the edge of the cliffside, startling Mary just as she attempts to turn a tragic act into a fatal accident. Mary’s plan unravels in a cascade of revelations: she had orchestrated the earlier killings, beginning with Jamison in a jealous rage, and she behind the murder of the Dean to protect a secret—her marriage to Graelich, a union that would have been deemed inappropriate within the school’s rigid rules.
The case widens its scope as the Falcon pieces together how Mary’s duplicity threaded through the murders, using jealousy and love to mask her ambitions. The dramatic climax exposes a woman who exploited others’ vulnerabilities to sew a deadly pattern, with the truth finally casting light on the menagerie of motives that thrived within the school’s hushed hallways.
In a final twist, Jane’s mother—an actress of fame—arrives at the school with another performer, introducing a new layer of intrigue and asking the Falcon to untangle a separate murder mystery at the theater. The ending hints at more secrets lurking behind the curtains, and the Falcon’s careful, persistent sleuthing leaves the truth standing, even as the men and women of Bluecliff retreat behind their carefully constructed façades.
