Bill Dawson is a broke young Brit sitting in the waiting room of a lawyer's office in New York City.

Hurst, not to be cheated of prey, offers Bill a bargain; continue to meet once weekly for three months and keep the ten thousand dollars he has already received.

Finally, after another death, Bill confronts the villain in a dramatic conclusion that takes place in a reconstruction of the sitting room of Sherlock Holmes and that reveals a very surprising tenth answer to the book's events.

[1] Randall Garrett noted that Carr "told the absolute truth — within the framework of the story — and left it to the reader to delude himself".

[2] Stephen Sondheim has described Carr's use of footnotes as "a constant, snotty, condescending shaking of the finger", which was "exhilarating", but ultimately concluded that he "was fonder of the notion than of the book ".