The narrator tells us that there have been a lot of murders recently in old city, and that the murderer of these murders hasn't yet been found. The police are trying to arrest him, but he's still out there. The narrator complains that he doesn't have anything to do with the case. He's just slacking off, and the police don't know what to do about it. The next morning, the police find no clues at the crime scene. The victim is found dead in a locked room with a stab wound to the heart. The cause of death seems to be a stab. It's 3 a.m., and no one has left the room in 24 hours. The killer is a 42 year-old man, who seems to have become a resident of the city recently. The chief wonders why the police are taking so long to solve the case, and he wonders if the big shots from New York City came to investigate because they're waiting too long for the killer to be caught.