Who was Belle Charmion? If you really care to know, as John Fenton did, you must go with him on his quest, hither and yon over New York, into strange houses and through side streets at midnight, a shuttle in the secret loom of fate, weaving in and out through many-colored threads, until the pattern of the mystery is made clear. For the warp of his strange, adventurous career – love and beauty and diamonds. For the woof – some few cross currents of crime and misery. There, in brief, is the web of his drama. (From Prologue)