The Five Silver Buddhas

Five cheap trinkets, featuring Buddha with hands over his eyes, were auctioned one day. Newspaperman Penn Harding bought one, as did Sol Levinstein the auctioneer. So did Ivan Kossakoff, known to the police only as "The Strangler"; Cedric van Allen, timid civil engineer from North Africa searching for a lost love; and Tim Waldo, second-story man formerly from Australia. Only Harry Stephen Keeler, master of the webworks, could have woven their five paths into one Brobdingnagian tapestry of oriental wisdom-and Chicago chicanery!