Dr. John Archer and detective Perry Dart are best friends with different religious views. The two crack jokes to each other. However, on this day, things are not the same. Dart tries to crack the usual jokes, but Dr. Archer is not amused. He looks stressed and angered. After a long silence, Dr. Archer tells Dart how his patient- a baby- had died under unclear circumstances. Dr. Archer tells his friend about the packet containing fried hair around the kid’s neck. The parents of the ailing baby visited a conjure-woman instead of a doctor. Indeed, the parents believe in the superstitions and prefer the traditional way of healing to hospitals.
The phone rings as Dr. Archer and detective Dart are talking about the death of the baby. The two dashes to a specific apartment where they find a young man called Sonny lying dead. Sonny was stabbed to death. The family members are questioned about his death. Unfortunately, no one seems to divulge details on what happened. There is confusion about who has committed the murder. Sonny is believed to have been killed by either a member of the family or the person with whom they shared the room.
The puzzle of Sonny’s death put both the detective and the doctor to a task. The two friends now must rely on Dr. Archer’s nose to unravel this mystery by following an elusive odor that is alleged to lead them to the killer. Eventually, Solomon Bright, whose baby died, believes that Sonny died because his mother killed his baby. Bright alleges that Mother Dewey used charms to kill his eighteen-year-old child. Most of the characters in this short story are superstitious.
