Gracie Allen in this case is not a famous artist, but a worker in a perfume factory. She involuntarily gives the enchanted Philo Vance all the important clues in this murder of a gangster, in those days when Riverdale in the Bronx was a rural paradise.
Vance meets her when she interacts with nature, and then again in a trendy restaurant where her brother plays an important role. For a moment, her mother appears, a gentle, faded lady who turns out to be as sharp as Gracie.
