Five years before the story begins, a man convicted of murdering a powerful, corrupt financier escaped and disappeared. Now, five years later, another financier, an honest one, is murdered in Seattle. The famous lawyer who is his executor is attacked on the train stuck in the snow in the wilds of Montana. Who can be the attacker? Is it the odd young man the lawyer’s daughter finds irritating and intriguing? Is it the man who claims a telegram that can’t be his? Is it someone else? After another murder, some safe cracking, a burned bridge, and a suspicious manhunt, the deep insights of a blind man finally unfold the who, what, and why of this puzzling case. (summary by Tom Penn)