The boarding house run by Mrs. Rhodes was a pleasant place, clean and quiet, that is until one of her lodgers, Emma Hogarth is found brutally murdered in her room. The victim had been reputed to keep a large amount of cash hidden in her room. Certainly many of the current and former lodgers would have found a use for the money, and not a few of them were keeping secrets. But, there was also a hint that something in Emma Hogarth's past might have been behind her murder. For his first case, newly appointed detective James Dundee might have wished for something simpler, especially when he discovers that his best witness is a parrot.